6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
6. The Augustinian Theory, or Theory of Adam's Natural Headship.This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”[pg 620]Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.[pg 628]No Condemnation Inherited.Pelagian.Arminian.New School.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate Creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Innocent, and able to obey God.Depraved, but still able to co-operate with the Spirit.Depraved and vicious, but this not sin.III. Effects of Adam's sin.Only upon himself.To corrupt his posterity physically and intellectually. No guilt of Adam's sin imputed.To communicate visiosity to the whole race.IV. How did all sin?By following Adam's example.By consciously ratifying Adam's own deed, in spite of the Spirit's aid.By voluntary transgression of known law.V. What is corruption?Only of evil habit, in each case.Evil tendencies kept in spite of the Spirit.Uncondemnable, but evil tendencies.VI. What is imputed?Every man's own sins.Only man's own sins and ratifying of this nature.Man's individual acts of transgression.VII. What is the death incurred?Spiritual and eternal.Physical and spiritual death by decree.Spiritual and eternal death only.VIII. How are men saved?By following Christ's example.By co-operating with the Spirit given to all.By accepting Christ under influence of truth presented by the Spirit.Condemnation Inherited.Federal.Placean.Augustinian.I. Origin of the soul.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.Immediate creation.II. Man's state at birth.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.Depraved, unable, and condemnable.III. Effects of Adam's sin.To insure condemnation of his fellows in covenant, and their creation as depraved.Natural connection of depravity in all his descendants.Guilt of Adam's sin, corruption, and death.IV. How did all sin?By being accounted sinners in Adam's sin.By possessing a depraved nature.By having part in the sin of Adam, as seminal head of the race.V. What is corruption?Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.Condemnable, evil disposition and state.VI. What is imputed?Adam's sin, man's own corruption, and man's own sins.Only depraved nature and man's own sin.Adam's sin, our depravity, and our own sins.VII. What is the death incurred?Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.Physical, spiritual, and eternal.VIII. How are men saved?By being accounted righteous through the act of Christ.By becoming possessors of a new nature in Christ.By Christ's work, with whom we are one.
This theory was first elaborated by Augustine (354-430), the great opponent of Pelagius; although its central feature appears in the writings of Tertullian (died about 220), Hilary (350), and Ambrose (374). It is frequently designated as the Augustinian view of sin. It was the view held by the Reformers, Zwingle excepted. Its principal advocates in this country are Dr. Shedd and Dr. Baird.
It holds that God imputes the sin of Adam immediately to all his posterity, in virtue of that organic unity of mankind by which the whole race at the time of Adam's transgression existed, not individually, but seminally, in him as its head. The total life of humanity was then in Adam; the race as yet had its being only in him. Its essence was not yet individualized; its forces were not yet distributed; the powers which now exist in separate men were then unified and localized in Adam; Adam's will was yet the will of the species. In Adam's free act, the will of the race revolted from God and the nature of the race corrupted itself. The nature which we now possess is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam—“not the same in kind merely, but the same as flowing to us continuously from him.”
Adam's sin is imputed to us immediately, therefore, not as something foreign to us, but because it is ours—we and all other men having existed as one moral person or one moral whole, in him, and, as the result of that transgression, possessing a nature destitute of love to God and prone to evil. In Rom. 5:12—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”signifies:“death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed unto all men, because all sinned in Adam their natural head.”
Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.
Milton, Par. Lost, 9:414—“Where likeliest he [Satan] might find The only two of mankind, but in them The whole included race, his purpos'd prey.”Augustine, De Pec. Mer. et Rem., 3:7—“In Adamo omnes tune peccaverunt, quando in ejus natura adhuc omnes ille unus fuerunt”; De Civ. Dei, 13, 14—“Omnes enim fuimus in illo uno, quando omnes fuimus ille unus.... Nondum erat nobis singillatim creata et distributa forma in qua singuli viveremus, sed jam natura erat seminalis ex qua propagaremur.”On Augustine's view, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2; 43-45 (System Doct., 2:338, 339)—In opposition to Pelagius who made sin to consist in single acts,“Augustine emphasized the sinful state. This was a deprivation of original righteousness + inordinate love. Tertullian, Cyprian, Hilarius, Ambrose had advocated traducianism, according to which, without their personal participation, the sinfulness of all is grounded in Adam's free act. They incur its consequences as an evil which is, at the same time, punishment of the inherited fault. But Irenæus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, say Adam was not simply a single individual, but the universal man. We were comprehended in him, so that in him we sinned. On the first view, the posterity were passive; on the second, they were active, in Adam's sin. Augustine represents both views, desiring to unite the universal sinfulness involved in traducianism with the universal will and guilt involved in cooperation with Adam's sin. Adam, therefore, to him, is a double conception, and = individual + race.”
Mozley on Predestination, 402—“In Augustine, some passages refer all wickedness to original sin; some account for different degrees of evil by different degrees of original sin (Op. imp. cont. Julianum, 4:128—‘Malitia naturalis.... in aliis minor, in aliis major est’); in some, the individual seems to add to original sin (De Correp. et Gratia, c. 13—‘Per liberum arbitrium alia insuper addiderunt, alii majus, alii minus, sed omnes mali.’De Grat. et Lib. Arbit., 2:1—‘Added to the sin of their birth sins of their own commission’; 2:4—‘Neither denies our liberty of will, whether to choose an evil or a good life, nor attributes to it so much power that it can avail anything without God's grace, or that it can change itself from evil to good’).”These passages seem to show that, side by side with the race-sin and its development, Augustine recognized a domain of free personal decision, by which each man could to some extent modify his character, and make himself more or less depraved.
The theory of Augustine was not the mere result of Augustine's temperament or of Augustine's sins. Many men have sinned like Augustine, but their intellects have only been benumbed and have been led into all manner of unbelief. It was the Holy Spirit who took possession of the temperament, and so overruled the sin as to make it a glass through which Augustine saw the depths of his nature. Nor was his doctrine one of exclusive divine transcendence, which left man a helpless worm at enmity with infinite justice. He was also a passionate believer in the immanence of God. He writes:“I could not be, O my God, could not be at all, wert not thou in me; rather, were not I in thee, of whom are all things, by whom are all things, in whom are are all things.... O God, thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless, till it find rest in thee.—The will of God is the very nature of things—Dei voluntas rerum natura est.”
Allen, Continuity of Christian Thought, Introduction, very erroneously declares that“the Augustinian theology rests upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle, and at every point appears as an inferior rendering of the earlier interpretation of the Christian faith.”On the other hand, L. L. Paine, Evolution of Trinitarianism, 69, 368-397, shows that, while Athanasius held to a dualistic transcendence, Augustine held to a theistic immanence:“Thus the Stoic, Neo-Platonic immanence, with Augustine, supplants the Platonico-Aristotelian and Athanasian transcendence.”Alexander, Theories of the Will, 90—“The theories of the early Fathers were indeterministic, and the pronounced Augustinianism of Augustine was the result of the rise into prominence of the doctrine of original sin.... The early Fathers thought of the origin of sin in angels and in Adam as due to free will. Augustine thought of the origin of[pg 621]sin in Adam's posterity as due to inherited evil will.”Harnack, Wesen des Christenthums, 161—“To this day in Catholicism inward and living piety and the expression of it is in essence wholly Augustinian.”
Calvin was essentially Augustinian and realistic; see his Institutes, book 2, chap. 1-3; Hagenbach, Hist. Doct., 1:505, 506, with the quotations and references. Zwingle was not an Augustinian. He held that native vitiosity, although it is the uniform occasion of sin, is not itself sin:“It is not a crime, but a condition and a disease.”See Hagenbach, Hist. Doct. 2:256, with references. Zwingle taught that every new-born child—thanks to Christ's making alive of all those who had died in Adam—is as free from any taint of sin as Adam was before the fall. The Reformers, however, with the single exception of Zwingle, were Augustinians, and accounted for the hereditary guilt of mankind, not by the fact that all men were represented in Adam, but that all men participated in Adam's sin. This is still the doctrine of the Lutheran church.
The theory of Adam's Natural Headship regards humanity at large as the outgrowth of one germ. Though the leaves of a tree appear as disconnected units when we look down upon them from above, a view from beneath will discern the common connection with the twigs, branches, trunk, and will finally trace their life to the root, and to the seed from which it originally sprang. The race of man is one because it sprang from one head. Its members are not to be regarded atomistically, as segregated individuals; the deeper truth is the truth of organic unity. Yet we are not philosophical realists; we do not believe in the separate existence of universals. We hold, not touniversalia ante rem, which is extreme realism; nor touniversalia post rem, which is nominalism; but touniversalia in re, which is moderate realism. Extreme realism cannot see the trees for the wood; nominalism cannot see the wood for the trees; moderate realism sees the wood in the trees. We hold to“universalia in re, but insist that the universals must be recognized asrealities, as truly as the individuals are”(H. B. Smith, System, 319, note). Three acorns have a common life, as three spools have not. Moderate realism is true of organic things; nominalism is true only of proper names. God has not created any new tree nature since he created the first tree; nor has he created any new human nature since he created the first man. I am but a branch and outgrowth of the tree of humanity.
Our realism then only asserts the real historical connection of each member of the race with its first father and head, and such a derivation of each from him as makes us partakers of the character which he formed. Adam was once the race; and when he fell, the race fell. Shedd:“We all existed in Adam in our elementary invisible substance. TheSeynof all was there, though theDaseynwas not; thenoumenon, though not thephenomenon, was in existence.”On realism, see Koehler, Realismus und Nominalismus; Neander, Ch. Hist., 4:356; Dorner, Person Christ, 2:377; Hase, Anselm, 2:77; F. E. Abbott, Scientific Theism, Introd., 1-29, and in Mind, Oct. 1882:476, 477; Raymond, Theology, 2:30-33; Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:69-74; Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 129-132; Ten Broeke, in Baptist Quar. Rev., Jan. 1892:1-26; Baldwin, Psychology, 280, 281; D. J. Hill, Genetic Philosophy, 186; Hours with the Mystics, 1:213; Case, Physical Realism, 17-19; Fullerton, Sameness and Identity, 88, 89, and Concept of the Infinite, 95-114.
The new conceptions of the reign of law and of the principle of heredity which prevail in modern science are working to the advantage of Christian theology. The doctrine of Adam's Natural Headship is only a doctrine of the hereditary transmission of character from the first father of the race to his descendants. Hence we use the word“imputation”in its proper sense—that of a reckoning or charging to us of that which is truly and properly ours. See Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 2:259-357, esp. 328—“The problem is: We must allow that the depravity, which all Adam's descendants inherit by natural generation, nevertheless involves personal guilt; and yet this depravity, so far as it is natural, wants the very conditions on which guilt depends. The only satisfactory explanation of this difficulty is the Christian doctrine of original sin. Here alone, if its inner possibility can be maintained, can the apparently contradictory principles be harmonized, viz.: the universal and deep-seated depravity of human nature, as the source of actual sin, and individual responsibility and guilt.”These words, though written by one who advocates a different theory, are nevertheless a valuable argument in corroboration of the theory of Adam's Natural Headship.
Thornwell, Theology, 1:343—“We must contradict every Scripture text and every Scripture doctrine which makes hereditary impurity hateful to God and punishable in his sight, or we must maintain that we sinned in Adam in his first transgression.”Secretan, in his Work on Liberty, held to acollectivelife of the race in Adam. He was[pg 622]answered by Naville, Problem of Evil:“We existed in Adam, not individually, but seminally. Each of us, as an individual, is responsible only for his personal acts, or, to speak more exactly, for the personal part of his acts. But each of us, as he is man, is jointly and severally (solidairement) responsible for the fall of the human race.”Bersier, The Oneness of the Race, in its Fall and in its Future:“If we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is because our neighbor is ourself.”
See Edwards, Original Sin, part 4, chap. 3; Shedd, on Original Sin, in Discourses and Essays, 218-271, and references, 261-263, also Dogm. Theol., 2:181-195; Baird, Elohim Revealed, 410-435, 451-460, 494; Schaff, in Bib. Sac., 5:220, and in Lange's Com., on Rom. 5:12; Auberlen, Div. Revelation, 175-180; Philippi, Glaubenslehre, 3:28-38, 204-236; Thomasius, Christi Person und Werk, 1:269-400; Martensen, Dogmatics, 173-183; Murphy, Scientific Bases, 262sq.,cf.101; Birks, Difficulties of Belief, 135; Bp. Reynolds, Sinfulness of Sin, in Works, 1:102-350; Mozley on Original Sin, in Lectures, 136-152; Kendall, on Natural Heirship, or All the World Akin, in Nineteenth Century, Oct. 1885:614-626.Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:157-164, 227-257; Haven, in Bib. Sac., 20:451-455; Criticism of Baird's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1880:335-376; of Schaff's doctrine, in Princeton Rev., Apr. 1870:239-262.
We regard this theory of the Natural Headship of Adam as the most satisfactory of the theories mentioned, and as furnishing the most important help towards the understanding of the great problem of original sin. In its favor may be urged the following considerations:
A. It puts the most natural interpretation upon Rom. 5:12-21. In verse 12 of this passage—“death passed unto all men, for that all sinned”—the great majority of commentators regard the word“sinned”as describing a common transgression of the race in Adam. The death spoken of is, as the whole context shows, mainly though not exclusively physical. It has passed upon all—even upon those who have committed no conscious and personal transgression whereby to explain its infliction (verse 14). The legal phraseology of the passage shows that this infliction is not a matter of sovereign decree, but of judicial penalty (verses 13, 14, 15, 16, 18—“law,”“transgression,”“trespass,”“judgment ... of one unto condemnation,”“act of righteousness,”“justification”). As the explanation of this universal subjection to penalty, we are referred to Adam's sin. By that one act (“so,”verse 12)—the“trespass of the one”man (v. 15, 17), the“one trespass”(v. 18)—death came to all men, because all [not“have sinned”, but] sinned (πάντες ἥμαρτον—aorist of instantaneous past action)—that is, all sinned in“the one trespass”of“the one”man. Compare 1 Cor. 15:22—“As in Adam all die”—where the contrast with physical resurrection shows that physical death is meant; 2 Cor. 5:14—“one died for all, therefore all died.”See Commentaries of Meyer, Bengel, Olshausen, Philippi, Wordsworth, Lange, Godet, Shedd. This is also recognized as the correct interpretation of Paul's words by Beyschlag, Ritschl, and Pfleiderer, although no one of these three accepts Paul's doctrine as authoritative.
Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.
Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, 2:58-60—“To understand the apostle's view, we must follow the exposition of Bengel (which is favored also by Meyer and Pfleiderer):‘Because they—viz., in Adam—all have sinned’; they all, namely, who were included in Adam according to the O. T. view which sees the whole race to its founder, acted in his action.”Ritschl:“Certainly Paul treated the universal destiny of death as due to the sin of Adam. Nevertheless it is not yet suited for a theological rule just for the reason that the apostle has formed this idea;”in other words, Paul's teaching it does not make it binding upon our faith. Philippi, Com. on Rom., 168—InterpretRom. 5:12—“one sinned for all, therefore all sinned,”by2 Cor. 5:15—“one died for all, therefore all died.”Evans, in Presb. Rev., 1883:294—“by the trespass of the one the many died,”“by the trespass of the one, death reigned[pg 623]through the one,”“through the one man's disobedience”—all these phrases, and the phrases with respect to salvation which correspond to them, indicate that the fallen race and the redeemed race are each regarded as a multitude, a totality. So οἱ πάντεσ in 2 Cor. 5:14 indicates a corresponding conception of the organic unity of the race.
Prof. George B. Stevens, Pauline Theology, 32-40, 129-139, denies that Paul taught the sinning of all men in Adam:“They sinned in the same sense in which believers were crucified to the world and died unto sin when Christ died upon the cross. The believer's renewal is conceived as wrought in advance by those acts and experiences of Christ in which it has its ground. As the consequences of his vicarious sufferings are traced back to their cause, so are the consequences which flowed from the beginning of sin in Adam traced back to that original fount of evil and identified with it; but the latter statement should no more be treated as a rigid logical formula than the former, its counterpart.... There is a mystical identification of the procuring cause with its effect,—both in the case of Adam and of Christ.”
In our treatment of the New School theory of sin we have pointed out that the inability to understand the vital union of the believer with Christ incapacitates the New School theologian from understanding the organic union of the race with Adam. Paul's phrase“in Christ”meant more than that Christ is the type and beginner of salvation, and sinning in Adam meant more to Paul than following the example or acting in the spirit of our first father. In2 Cor. 5:14the argument is that since Christ died, all believers died to sin and death in him. Their resurrection-life is the same life that died and rose again in his death and resurrection. So Adam's sin is ours because the same life which transgressed and became corrupt in him has come down to us and is our possession. InRom. 5:14, the individual and conscious sins to which the New School theory attaches the condemning sentence are expressly excluded, and inverses 15-19the judgment is declared to be“of one trespass.”Prof. Wm. Arnold Stevens, of Rochester, says well:“Paul teaches that Adam's sin is ours, not potentially, but actually.”Of ἥμαρτον, he says:“This might conceivably be: (1) the historical aorist proper, used in its momentary sense; (2) the comprehensive or collective aorist, as in διῆλθεν in the same verse; (3) the aorist used in the sense of the English perfect, as inRom. 3:23—πάντες γὰρ ἥμαρτον καὶ ὑστεροῦνται. In5:12, the context determines with great probability that the aorist is used in the first of these senses.”We may add that interpreters are not wanting who so take ἥμαρτον in3:23; see also margin of Rev. Version. But since the passageRom. 5:12-19is so important, we reserve to the close of this section a treatment of it in greater detail.
B. It permits whatever of truth there may be in the Federal theory and in the theory of Mediate Imputation to be combined with it, while neither of these latter theories can be justified to reason unless they are regarded as corollaries or accessories of the truth of Adam's Natural Headship. Only on this supposition of Natural Headship could God justly constitute Adam our representative, or hold us responsible for the depraved nature we have received from him. It moreover justifies God's ways, in postulating a real and a fair probation of our common nature as preliminary to imputation of sin—a truth which the theories just mentioned, in common with that of the New School, virtually deny,—while it rests upon correct philosophical principles with regard to will, ability, law, and accepts the Scriptural representations of the nature of sin, the penal character of death, the origin of the soul, and the oneness of the race in the transgression.
John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.
John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-232, favors the view that sin consists simply in an inherited bias of our nature to evil, and that we are guilty from birth because we are sinful from birth. But he recognizes in Augustinianism the truth of the organic unity of the race and the implication of every member in its past history. He tells us that we must not regard man simply as an abstract or isolated individual. The atomistic theory regards society as having no existence other than that of the individuals who compose it. But it is nearer the truth to say that it is society which creates the individual, rather than that the individual creates society. Man does not come into existence a blank tablet on which external agencies may write whatever record they will. The individual is steeped in influences which are due to the past history[pg 624]of his kind. The individualistic theory runs counter to the most obvious facts of observation and experience. As a philosophy of life, Augustinianism has a depth and significance which the individualistic theory cannot claim.
Alvah Hovey, Manual of Christian Theology, 175 (2d ed.)—“Every child of Adam is accountable for the degree of sympathy which he has for the whole system of evil in the world, and with the primal act of disobedience among men. If that sympathy is full, whether expressed by deed or thought, if the whole force of his being is arrayed against heaven and on the side of hell, it is difficult to limit his responsibility.”Schleiermacher held that the guilt of original sin attached, not to the individual as an individual, but as a member of the race, so that the consciousness of race-union carried with it the consciousness of race-guilt. He held all men to be equally sinful and to differ only in their different reception of or attitude toward grace, sin being the universalmalum metaphysicumof Spinoza; see Pfleiderer, Prot. Theol. seit Kant, 113.
C. While its fundamental presupposition—a determination of the will of each member of the race prior to his individual consciousness—is an hypothesis difficult in itself, it is an hypothesis which furnishes the key to many more difficulties than it suggests. Once allow that the race was one in its first ancestor and fell in him, and light is thrown on a problem otherwise insoluble—the problem of our accountability for a sinful nature which we have not personally and consciously originated. Since we cannot, with the three theories first mentioned, deny either of the terms of this problem—inborn depravity or accountability for it,—we accept this solution as the best attainable.
Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.
Sterrett, Reason and Authority in Religion, 20—“The whole swing of the pendulum of thought of to-day is away from the individual and towards the social point of view. Theories of society are supplementing theories of the individual. The solidarity of man is the regnant thought in both the scientific and the historical study of man. It is even running into the extreme of a determinism that annihilates the individual.”Chapman, Jesus Christ and the Present Age, 43—“It was never less possible to deny the truth to which theology gives expression in its doctrine of original sin than in the present age. It is only one form of the universally recognized fact of heredity. There is a collective evil, for which the responsibility rests on the whole race of man. Of this common evil each man inherits his share; it is organized in his nature; it is established in his environment.”E. G. Robinson:“The tendency of modern theology [in the last generation] was to individualization, to make each man‘a little Almighty.’But the human race is one in kind, and in a sense is numerically one. The race lay potentially in Adam. The entire developing force of the race was in him. There is no carrying the race up, except from the starting-point of a fallen and guilty humanity.”Goethe said that while humanity ever advances, individual man remains the same.
The true test of a theory is, not that it can itself be explained, but that it is capable of explaining. The atomic theory in chemistry, the theory of the ether in physics, the theory of gravitation, the theory of evolution, are all in themselves indemonstrable hypotheses, provisionally accepted simply because, if granted, they unify great aggregations of facts. Coleridge said that original sin is the one mystery that makes all other things clear. In this mystery, however, there is nothing self-contradictory or arbitrary. Gladden, What is Left? 131—“Heredity is God working in us, and environment is God working around us.”Whether we adopt the theory of Augustine or not, the facts of universal moral obliquity and universal human suffering confront us. We are compelled to reconcile these facts with our faith in the righteousness and goodness of God. Augustine gives us a unifying principle which, better than any other, explains these facts and justifies them. On the solidarity of the race, see Bruce, The Providential Order, 280-310, and art. on Sin, by Bernard, in Hastings' Bible Dictionary.
D. This theory finds support in the conclusions of modern science: with regard to the moral law, as requiring right states as well as right acts; with regard to the human will, as including subconscious and unconscious bent and determination; with regard to heredity, and the transmission of evil character; with regard to the unity and solidarity of the human race.[pg 625]The Augustinian theory may therefore be called an ethical or theological interpretation of certain incontestable and acknowledged biological facts.
Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.
Ribot, Heredity, 1—“Heredity is that biological law by which all beings endowed with life tend to repeat themselves in their descendants; it is for the species what personal identity is for the individual. By it a groundwork remains unchanged amid incessant variations. By it nature ever copies and imitates herself.”Griffith-Jones, Ascent through Christ, 202-218—“In man's moral condition we find arrested development; reversion to a savage type; hypocritical and self-protective mimicry of virtue; parasitism; physical and moral abnormality; deep-seated perversion of faculty.”Simon, Reconciliation, 154 sq.—“The organism was affected before the individuals which are its successive differentiations and products were affected.... Humanity as an organism received an injury from sin. It received that injury at the very beginning.... At the moment when the seed began to germinate disease entered and it was smitten with death on account of sin.”
Bowne, Theory of Thought and Knowledge, 134—“A general notion has no actual or possible metaphysical existence. All real existence is necessarily singular and individual. The only way to give the notion any metaphysical significance is to turn it into a law inherent in reality, and this attempt will fail unless we finally conceive this law as a rule according to which a basal intelligence proceeds in positing individuals.”Sheldon, in the Methodist Review, March, 1901:214-227, applies this explanation to the doctrine of original sin. Men have a common nature, he says, only in the sense that they are resembling personalities. If we literally died in Adam, we also literally died in Christ. There is no all-inclusive Christ, any more than there is an all-inclusive Adam. We regard this argument as proving the precise opposite of its intended conclusion. There is an all-inclusive Christ, and the fundamental error of most of those who oppose Augustinianism is that they misconceive the union of the believer with Christ.“A basal intelligence”here“posits individuals.”And so with the relation of men to Adam. Here too there is“a law inherent in reality”—the regular working of the divine will, according to which like produces like, and a sinful germ reproduces itself.
E. We are to remember, however, that while this theory of the method of our union with Adam is merely a valuable hypothesis, the problem which it seeks to explain is, in both its terms, presented to us both by conscience and by Scripture. In connection with this problem a central fact is announced in Scripture, which we feel compelled to believe upon divine testimony, even though every attempted explanation should prove unsatisfactory. That central fact, which constitutes the substance of the Scripture doctrine of original sin, is simply this: that the sin of Adam is the immediate cause and ground of inborn depravity, guilt and condemnation to the whole human race.
Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun inVerse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.
Three things must be received on Scripture testimony: (1) inborn depravity; (2) guilt and condemnation therefor; (3) Adam's sin the cause and ground of both. From these three positions of Scripture it seems not only natural, but inevitable, to draw the inference that we“all sinned”in Adam. The Augustinian theory simply puts in a link of connection between two sets of facts which otherwise would be difficult to reconcile. But, in putting in that link of connection, it claims that it is merely bringing out into clear light an underlying but implicit assumption of Paul's reasoning, and this it seeks to prove by showing that upon no other assumption can Paul's reasoning be understood at all. Since the passage inRom. 5:12-19is so important, we proceed to examine it in greater detail. Our treatment is mainly a reproduction of the substance of Shedd's Commentary, although we have combined with it remarks from Meyer, Schaff, Moule, and others.
Exposition of Rom. 5:12-19.—Parallel between the salvation in Christ and the ruin that has come through Adam, in each case through no personal act of our own, neither by our earning salvation in the case of the life received through Christ, nor by our individually sinning in the case of the death received through Adam. The statement of the parallel is begun in
Verse 12:“as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,”so (as we may complete the interrupted sentence) by one man righteousness[pg 626]entered into the world, and life by righteousness, and so life passed upon all men, because all became partakers of this righteousness. Both physical and spiritual death is meant. That it is physical is shown (1) fromverse 14; (2) from the allusion toGen. 3:19; (3) from the universal Jewish and Christian assumption that physical death was the result of Adam's sin. See Wisdom 2:23, 24; Sirach 25:24; 2 Esdras 3:7, 21; 7:11, 46, 48, 118; 9:19;John 8:44;1 Cor. 15:21. That it is spiritual, is evident fromRom. 5:18, 21, where ζωή is the opposite of θάνατος, and from2 Tim. 1:10, where the same contrast occurs. The οὔτος inverse 12shows the mode in which historically death has come to all, namely, that theonesinned, and thereby brought death to all; in other words, death is the effect, of which the sin of the one is the cause. By Adam's act, physical and spiritual death passed upon all men, because all sinned. ἐφ᾽ ᾦ = because, on the ground of the fact that, for the reason that, all sinned. πάντες = all, without exception, infants included, asverse 14teaches.
Ἥμαρτον mentions the particular reason why all men died,viz., because all men sinned. It is the aorist of momentary past action—sinned when, through the one, sin entered into the world. It is as much as to say,“because, when Adam sinned, all men sinned in and with him.”This is proved by the succeeding explanatory context (verses 15-19), in which it is reiterated five times in succession that one and only one sin is the cause of the death that befalls all men. Compare1 Cor. 15:22. The senses“all were sinful,”“all became sinful,”are inadmissible, for ἁμαρτάνειν is not ἁμαρτωλὸν γίγνεσθαι or εἶναι. The sense“death passed upon all men, because all have consciously and personally sinned,”is contradicted (1) byverse 14, in which it is asserted that certain persons who are a part of πάντες, the subject of ἥμαρτον, and who suffer the death which is the penalty of sin, did not commit sins resembling Adam's first sin,i. e., individual and conscious transgressions; and (2) byverses 15-19, in which it is asserted repeatedly that only one sin, and not millions of transgressions, is the cause of the death of all men. This sense would seem to require ἐφ᾽ ᾧ πάντες ἁμαρτάνουσιν. Neither can ἥμαρτον have the sense“were accounted and treated as sinners”; for (1) there is no other instance in Scripture where this active verb has a passive signification; and (2) the passive makes ἥμαρτον to denote God's action, and not man's. This would not furnish the justification of the infliction of death, which Paul is seeking,
Verse 13begins a demonstration of the proposition, inVerse 12, that death comes to all, because all men sinned the one sin of the one man. The argument is as follows: Before the law sin existed; for there was death, the penalty of sin. But this sin was not sin committed against theMosaiclaw, because that law was not yet in existence. The death in the world prior to that law proves that there must have been some other law, against which sin had been committed.
Verse 14. Nor could it have been personal and conscious violation of anunwrittenlaw, for which death was inflicted; for death passed upon multitudes, such as infants and idiots, who did not sin in their own persons, as Adam did, by violating some known commandment. Infants are not specifically named here, because the intention is to include others who, though mature in years, have not reached moral consciousness. But since death is everywhere and always the penalty of sin, the death of all must have been the penalty of the common sin of the race, when πάντες ἥμαρτον in Adam. The law which they violated was the Eden statute,Gen. 2:17. The relation between their sin and Adam's is not that ofresemblance, but ofidentity. Had the sin by which death came upon them been onelikeAdam's, there would have been as many sins, to be the cause of death and to account for it, as there were individuals. Death would have come into the world through millions of men, and not“through one man”(verse 12), and judgment would have come upon all men to condemnation through millions of trespasses, and not“through one trespass”(v. 18). The object, then, of the parenthetical digression inverses 13and14is to prevent the reader from supposing, from the statement that“all men sinned,”that the individual transgressions of all men are meant, and to make it clear that only the one first sin of the one first man is intended. Those who died before Moses must have violated some law. The Mosaic law, and the law of conscience, have been ruled out of the case. These persons must, therefore, have sinned against the commandment in Eden, the probationary statute; and their sin was notsimilar(ὁμοίος) to Adam's, but Adam'sidenticalsin, the very same sin numerically of the“one man.”They did not, in their own persons and consciously, sin as Adam did; yet in Adam, and in the nature common to him and them, they sinned and fell (versusCurrent Discussions in Theology, 5:277, 278). They did not sinlikeAdam, but they“sinnedinhim, and fellwithhim, in that first transgression”(Westminster Larger Catechism, 22).
Verses 15-17show how the work of grace differs from, and surpasses, the work of sin.[pg 627]Over against God's exact justice in punishing all for the first sin which all committed in Adam, is set the gratuitous justification of all who are in Christ. Adam's sin is the act of Adam and his posterity together; hence the imputation to the posterity is just, and merited. Christ's obedience is the work of Christ alone; hence the imputation of it to the elect is gracious and unmerited. Here τοὺς πολλούς is not of equal extent with οἱ πολλοί in the first clause, because other passages teach that“the many”who die in Adam are not conterminous with“the many”who live in Christ; see1 Cor. 15:22;Mat. 25:46; also, see note onverse 18, below. Τοὺς πολλούς here refers to the same persons who, inverse 17, are said to“receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”Verse 16notices a numerical difference between the condemnation and the justification. Condemnation results fromoneoffense; justification delivers frommanyoffences.Verse 17enforces and explainsverse 16. If the union with Adam in his sin was certain to bring destruction, the union with Christ in his righteousness is yet more certain to bring salvation.
Verse 18resumes the parallel between Adam and Christ which was commenced inverse 12, but was interrupted by the explanatory parenthesis inverses 13-17.“As through one trespass ... unto all men to condemnation; even so through one act of righteousness ... unto all men unto justification of[necessary to]life.”Here the“all men to condemnation”—the οἱ πολλοί inverse 15; and the“all men unto justification of life”—the τοὺς πολλούς inverse 15. There is a totality in each case; but, in the former case, it is the“all men”who derive their physical life from Adam,—in the latter case, it is the“all men”who derive their spiritual life from Christ (compare1 Cor. 15:22—“For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”—in which last clause Paul is speaking, as the context shows, not of the resurrection of all men, both saints and sinners, but only of the blessed resurrection of the righteous; in other words, of the resurrection of those who are one with Christ).
Verse 19.“For as through the one man's disobedience the many were constituted sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be constituted righteous.”The many were constituted sinners because, according toverse 12, they sinned in and with Adam in his fall. The verb presupposes the fact of natural union between those to whom it relates. All men are declared to be sinners on the ground of that“one trespass,”because, when that one trespass was committed, all men were one man—that is, were one common nature in the first human pair. Sin is imputed, because it is committed. All men are punished with death, because they literally sinned in Adam, and not because they are metaphorically reputed to have done so, but in fact did not. Οἱ πολλοί is used in contrast with the one forefather, and the atonement of Christ is designated as ὑπακοή, in order to contrast it with the παρακοή of Adam.
Κατασταθήσονται has the same signification as in the first part of the verse. Δίκαιοι κατασταθήσονται means simply“shall be justified,”and is used instead of δικαιωθήσονται, in order to make the antithesis of ἁμαρτωλοὶ κατεστάθησαν more perfect. This being“constituted righteous”presupposes the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between Christ and believers, just as the being“constituted sinners”presupposed the fact of a union between ὁ εἶς and οἱ πολλοί,i. e., between all men and Adam. The future κατασταθήσονται refers to the succession of believers; thejustificationof all was, ideally, complete already, but actually, it would await the times of individual believing.“The many”who shall be“constituted righteous”—not all mankind, but only“the many”to whom, inverse 15, grace abounded, and who are described, inverse 17, as“they that receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness.”
“But this union differs in several important particulars from that between Adam and his posterity. It is not natural and substantial, but moral and spiritual; not generic and universal, but individual and by election; not caused by the creative act of God, but by his regenerating act. All men, without exception, are one with Adam; only believing men are one with Christ. The imputation of Adam's sin is not an arbitrary act in the sense that, if God so pleased, he could reckon it to the account of any beings in the universe, by a volition. The sin of Adam could not be imputed to the fallen angels, for example, and punished in them, because they never were one with Adam by unity of substance and nature. The fact that they have committed actual transgression of their own will not justify the imputation of Adam's sin to them, any more than the fact that the posterity of Adam have committed actual transgressions of their own would be a sufficient reason for imputing the first sin of Adam to them. Nothing but a real union of nature and being can justify the imputation of Adam's sin; and, similarly, the obedience of Christ could no more be imputed to an unbelieving man than to a lost angel, because neither of these is morally and spiritually one with Christ”(Shedd). For a different interpretation (ἡμαρτον—sinned personally and individually), see Kendrick, in Bap. Rev., 1885:48-72.
No Condemnation Inherited.
Condemnation Inherited.