§ 3. Defence of the Doctrine that Sin is a Nature, by Professor Shedd.
In the “Christian Review” for 1852 appeared an article of great power, written by a gentleman who has since become eminent as a thinker and writer—Professor W. G. T. Shedd. The title of [pg 456] the article was calculated to attract attention, as a bold attempt to defend an extreme position of Calvinism—“Sin a Nature, and that Nature Guilt.” The article was so rational and clear that we consider it as being even now the best statement extant of this thorough-going Calvinism, and therefore devote a few pages here to its examination.[87]
After some introductory remarks, which it is not necessary to notice, the writer lays down his first position, that sin is a nature. His statement is, that we all sin necessarily and continually in consequence of our nature, i.e., the character born with us, original and innate.
The proofs of this position are, 1. The language of St. Paul (Eph. 2:3), “We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.” 2. That we are compelled by the laws of our mind to refer volitions to a nature, as qualities to a substance. We cannot stop in the outward act of sin, but by a mental instinct look inward to the particular volition from which the sin came. Nor can the mind stop with this particular volition. There is a steady and uniform state of character, which particular volitions cannot explain. The instinct of reason causes us to look back for one common principle and source, which shall give unity to the subject; and, having attained a view both central and simple, it is satisfied. As our mind compels us to refer all properties to a substance in which they inhere, so it compels us to refer all similar volitions to a simple nature. When we see exercises of the soul, we as instinctively refer them to a nature in that soul, as we refer the properties of a body to the substance of that body. 3. Christian experience proves that sin is a nature. The Christian, especially as his experience deepens, is troubled, not so much by his separate sinful actions and volitions, as by the sinful nature which they indicate, and out of which they spring. We are compelled to believe, as we look inward, that there is a principle of evil within us, below those separate transgressions of which we are conscious. There is a diseased condition of the soul, which these transgressions, indicate. There are secret faults from which we pray to be cleansed. 4. The history of Christian doctrine shows that the Church has in all ages believed in a sinful nature, as distinguished from conscious transgressions.
These are the proofs of the first position, that sin is a nature. [pg 457] We have stated them concisely, but with sufficient distinctness and completeness. Let us now examine their validity.
The first argument is the text in Ephesians, “We were by nature children of wrath,” ἦμεν τέκνα φύσει ὀργῆς. The word φύσις, the writer contends, “always denotes something original and innate, in contradistinction to something acquired by practice or habit.” This text, we know, is the proof-text of original sin, and is considered by many commentators as teaching that man's nature is wholly corrupt. But plainly this is going too far. Granting the full meaning claimed for the word φύσις, the text only asserts that there is something in man's nature which exposes him to the divine displeasure by being the source of sin. It does not assert the corruption of the whole nature, nor preclude the supposition that we are born with tendencies to good, no less than to evil. That we are so, the writer is bound by his own statement to admit; for if this Greek word “always denotes something original and innate,” it denotes this in Rom. 2:14,[88] which declares that the Gentiles “do by nature the things contained in the law.” According to this passage in Romans, if there be such a thing as natural depravity, it is not total; and if there be such a thing as total depravity, it is not natural. Those who wish to maintain both doctrines can only do it by admitting two different kinds of sinfulness in man, one of which is natural, but not total; the other total, but not natural—a distinction which we esteem a sound one. According to this passage in Rom 2:14, we must understand φύσις as referring to the good side of man's nature, and the same word in Eph. 2:3 as referring to the corrupt side of man's moral nature. The first refers to the “law of the mind;” the second, to the other “law in the members” (Rom. 7:23). But there is another passage (Gal. 2:15), which asserts that the Jews by nature are not sinners, like the heathen. Now, as we can hardly suppose that the original instincts and innate tendencies of the Jewish child were radically good from birth, and essentially different from those of the heathen, and as such a supposition would contradict the whole argument of Paul in Rom. ch. 2, it is [pg 458] evident that φύσις in Gal. 2:15 does not denote something original and innate. The meaning of this verse probably is, that the Jew from birth up, and by the mere fact of being born a Jew, came under the influences of a religious education, which preserved him from many forms of heathen depravity. The word, therefore, means in that passage, not a Jew by nature, but a Jew by birth; and, if so, we are at liberty, if we choose, to ascribe the same meaning to the word in Ephesians, and to understand the text to teach that we were by birth placed under circumstances which tended necessarily to deprave the character.
This passage, therefore, quoted by the writer, does not teach entire depravity by nature, but a partial depravity, either found in the hereditary tendencies and instincts, or acquired by means of the evil circumstances surrounding the child from his birth.
The second argument of the writer is, that the laws of mind compel us to refer sinful volitions to a sinful nature, as they compel us to refer qualities to a substance.
We admit that, where we see uniform and constant habits of action, we are compelled to refer these to a permanent character or state of being. If a man once in his life becomes intoxicated, we do not infer any habit of intemperance, or any vicious tendency; but if he is habitually intemperate, we are compelled, as the writer justly asserts, to look beneath the separate single actions for one common principle and source. But in assuming that this source is a nature brought with us into the world, the writer seems to us to jump to a conclusion. It may be an acquired character, not an original nature. It may be an induced state of disease either of body or mind, a depravity which has commenced this side of childhood. We know that there are acquired habits both of mind and of body; otherwise, not only would it be impossible for a man to grow worse, but it would also be impossible for him to grow better, and there would be an end to all improvement and progress. Such an acquired character introduces unity into the subject of investigation, as completely as does an original nature, and therefore satisfies all the wants of the mind.
A precisely similar answer may be made to the writer's third argument, drawn from Christian experience. He is perfectly right, we think, in saying that the Christian is troubled, not merely, nor chiefly, by the recollection of single acts and volitions of evil, but in the evidence which they seem to give of a sinful state of mind and heart. He is right in considering any theory of [pg 459] moral evil shallow and inadequate which only takes into account sinful actions and sinful volitions. What earnest man, who has seriously set about correcting a fault, or improving his character, but has been obliged to say, “To will is present with me; but how to perform that which I will, I find not”? Every earnest effort shows us more plainly how deep the roots of evil run below the surface. We find a law in the members warring against the law of the mind, and bringing us into captivity to the law of sin. This is the description which Paul gives of it. It is a law; that is, something regular, constant, permanent—a steady stress, a bias towards evil. The apostle, however, differs from the writer in placing this law, not in the will, but in the members; and also in stating that there is another law,—that of the mind,—which has a tendency towards good. In the unregenerate we understand him to teach that the law of evil is the stronger, and holds the man, the personal will, captive. In the regenerate, the reverse is the case. Nor does Paul teach that this sinful tendency is guilt. It is not “O guilty man that I am!” but “O wretched man that I am!”
Now, while we agree with the writer in rejecting as superficial and inadequate any theory of evil, whether emanating from our own denomination or from any other, which does not recognize this evil state or tendency lying below the volitions, we differ from him in that we think it not always a nature, but a character. He has not proved, nor begun to prove, that this dark ground of evil in man is always innate or original. It may or may not be; but the argument from Christian experience shows nothing of the sort.
The writer's fourth and remaining argument is, that the Church has, in all ages, believed in a sinful nature, as distinguished from conscious transgressions. If this were so, we admit that it should have weight in the inquiry; but we deny the fact so far, at least, as the sinful nature is concerned.[89]
The writer proceeds thus: “Assuming, then, that the fact of a sinful nature has been established, we pass to the second statement of St. Paul, that man is by nature a child of wrath. We pass from his statement that sin, in its ultimate form, is a nature, to his statement that this nature is guilt.” If we have done justice to the writer's arguments,—and it has been our object to state them fairly, though briefly,—we submit that the fact of a sinful nature has not been established by them. He has shown that in man there is a tendency to evil running below the conscious, distinct volitions—that there is a permanent character, good or evil, which manifests itself, and becomes first apparent to ourselves, or to others, in these separate, spiritual exercises or actions. But that this stress either to good or evil, this law either of the mind or members, is original and inborn, is yet to be proved. Let us then consider the second point, namely, whether this character or nature, whichever it may be, is also guilt.
As the writer's first argument to prove a sinful nature was drawn from the Greek word φύσις, so his first argument to prove that nature guilt is derived from the Greek word ὀργή in the same passage. “The apostle teaches,” he says, “that sinful man is a child of wrath. Now, none but a guilty being can be the object of the righteous and holy displeasure of God.” But this word, translated wrath, is confessedly used in other senses besides that of the divine anger or displeasure. It may mean the sufferings or punishments which come as the result of sin, in which sense it is used in Matt. 3:7, “Who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” and other places. This word is used in the passage just quoted for some future evil; in John 3:36, for a present evil—“The wrath of God abides on him;” and in 1 Thess. 2:16, for a past evil—“For the wrath is come [lit. has come] on them to the uttermost.” It may mean the subjective feeling of guilt; the sense that we deserve the divine displeasure, which is removed by the assurance of forgiveness. It may mean the state of alienation from God, which results by a law of the conscience from this sense of guilt—an alienation removed by the divine act by which God reconciles the sinner to himself. And the radical meaning, from which these secondary meanings flow, may be the essential antagonism existing between the holy nature of God and all evil. But whatever it means, it cannot intend anything like human anger. In the divine wrath there is neither selfishness nor passion; and it must consist with an infinite love towards its object. The word, therefore, as used in Eph. 2:3, does not convey the [pg 461] idea of guilt, a vi terminis. It may mean as well, that this sinful tendency in man, manifesting itself in sinful actions, produces a state of estrangement or alienation between man and God. How far this is a guilty alienation, and how far it is evil and sorrowful, is not to be learned from the term itself.
But the main proof of the writer in support of his second position is found in the assertion, that this sinful tendency in man, out of which evil acts continually flow, is not a tendency of the physical nature, but of the will itself. He distinguishes the will proper from the mere faculty of single choices, and considers it to be a deeper power lying at the very centre of the soul, which determines the whole man with reference to some great and unlimited end of living. It is, in fact, the man himself—the person. For man, he asserts, is not essentially intellect or feeling; but is essentially and at bottom a will, a self-determining creature. “His other faculties of knowing and feeling are grafted into this stock and root; and hence he is responsible from centre to circumference.” He then affirms the will, thus defined, to be the responsible and guilty author of the sinful nature; being nothing more nor less than its constant and total determination to self as the ultimate end of living. This voluntary power, which is the man himself, has turned away from God and directed itself to self as an ultimate end; and this state of the will is the sinful nature of man.
We have no disposition to quarrel with the psychology of this statement. We admit man to be essentially will, in the sense here described. He is essentially activity; an activity limited externally, by special organization and circumstances,—limited internally, by quantity of force, and knowledge.
Nor, again, do we deny that in the unregenerate state the will of man is directed to self rather than to God as its ultimate end; and that this is guilt, and in a certain sense total guilt. No man can serve two masters. If he is obedient to one, he is necessarily disobedient to the other. This disobedience may, or may not, appear in act; but it is there in state. He whose ultimate end is self-gratification is always ready to sacrifice the will of God to his own. He whose ultimate end is God is always ready to sacrifice his own will. In this sense, the unregenerate man may be said to be wholly sinful; and he who is born of God, not to commit sin.
Thus much we grant; and the admission is a large one. But we must now object to the writer, that this is but one side of the question; and that he has omitted to see the other side. The [pg 462] sources of evil are not so simple as he seems to suppose; for man is a very complex being, and the world in which he lives is a very complex world. We therefore would inquire,—
What proof have we that this guilty direction of the will is a nature, in the sense claimed, i.e., something innate or original? Why may not the will have been turned gradually in this direction as we grow up, by enticements of pleasure; and why might not the will, in like manner, by means of wise culture, have been gradually directed to God?
Again: what proof have we that we are so wholly unconscious of this direction of the will, as our author contends? That a great many of the acts of the will are unconscious acts, like the separate movements of the finger in a skilful pianist, or lifting of the feet in walking, we admit; and we are not responsible for these separate acts, but for the preceding choice, by means of which we determine to play the tune, or walk the mile. In like manner, the direction of the soul to self rather than to God may be moral evil; but is not moral guilt, until we become conscious of it, in a greater or less degree. Then, when partially or wholly awakened to the evil direction of the soul, if we allow ourselves to neglect this discovery, to turn away from the fact and forget it, on that conscious act presses the whole burden of guilt, and not on the unconscious volitions which may result from it. We say, therefore, in opposition to the writer, that though there may be depravity without consciousness of the depraved state, there cannot be guilt without consciousness of the evil choice, or, as the apostle says, “Sin is not imputed where there is no law.”
Again: we totally dissent from the statement that this deep-lying will in man is unable to obey the commands, “Turn ye, turn ye from your evil way, for why will ye die?”—“Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,”—“Make you a new heart and a new spirit,”—“Choose you this day whom you will serve,”—“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved.” The writer says, that “such a power as this, including so much, and running so deep, which is a determination of the whole soul, cannot, from the very nature of the case, be such a facile and easily managed power as that by which we resolve to do some particular thing in every-day life.” True: not so easily managed; but can it not be managed at all? It may require more self-examination to understand what the direction of the will is, and more concentration of thought and will, and more leaning on God's help; but [pg 463] with all these are we able or not able to turn to God? He says, the great main tendency of the will to self and sin as an ultimate end, though having a free and criminal origin, “is not to be reversed so easily.” True, again; but why not less easily? The writer speaks of the sinful will as a “total determination of itself to self;” and asks “how the power that is to reverse all this process can possibly come out of the will thus shut up, and entirely swallowed in the process. How is the process to destroy itself?” But what! Has man become a process? He is essentially will, but is this will blind mechanism? Has it not, according to our author's own theory, intelligence, conscience, affection, rooted into it? The moment that the writer begins to speak of the will, as unable to change its direction, he is compelled to conceive of it materially and mechanically, and not as the moral, responsible soul. He says, “The human will becomes a current that becomes unmanageable simply because of its own momentum.” And therefore, again, he is obliged to conceive of the whole voluntary power as lost, and lost before man was born; and he reduces all our real freedom to the original act of the will previous to birth, which took place when we were present in Adam's soul, and committed the first transgression with him.
This is plainly the denial of all human freedom since the fall of Adam. We bring into the world, according to the writer, a will wholly and inevitably bent to evil. We have no consciousness of this tendency, and if we were conscious of it we have no power to change it; but we yet are responsible for it, and guilty because of it, inasmuch as we began this state ourselves when all our souls were mystically present in the soul of Adam. Of this theory, we merely say now, that, if it be true, man is not now guilty of any sin which he commits in his mortal life; for he is not now a free being. He is only responsible for the sin which he freely committed in Adam. He is no more responsible when we suppose his sin to proceed from his will, than when we suppose it to proceed from a depraved sensuous nature, or from involuntary ignorance, for he is no more free in the one case than in the other. He may be an infinitely depraved and infinitely miserable being, but he can in no true sense be called a guilty being. Again we say, if this theory be true, it is an awful theory, and one which we cannot possibly reconcile with the justice or goodness, and still less with the fatherly character, of God. That God should so have constituted human nature that all the millions of the human [pg 464] race should have had this fatal opportunity of destroying themselves utterly, by one simultaneous act, in Adam, is, to say the least, an awful theory to propound concerning our heavenly Father. We might put Christ's argument to any man not hardened by theological study, as it seems to us, with irresistible force. “What man is there among you, being a father,” who could do anything of this sort? But we know too well that all such appeals fall harmless from the sevenfold shield of a systematized theology.
Therefore we will only say further, concerning this theory, that, as being apparently in direct conflict with the divine attributes as taught in the New Testament; as making man a mere process deprived of real freedom; as proving man not guilty for any sin committed in this life; and as thereby deadening the sense of responsibility, and showing that we cannot possibly obey the command, “Repent and turn to God,”—this theory of a sin committed in Adam ought to have the amplest proof before we believe it. We admit that it may be true, though opposed to all our ideas of God, man, and duty. But being thus opposed, it ought to be sustained by the most unanswerable arguments. If Jesus and his apostles have told us so plainly, we will believe it if we can. How is it, then? Not a word on the subject in the four Gospels. Not a text from the lips of Jesus which can be pretended to lay down any such theory. He does not even mention the name of Adam once in the Gospels, nor allude to him, except when speaking of marriage. This theory rests, not on anything contained in the Gospels, book of Acts, or Epistles of Peter, James, or John, but on two texts in two Epistles of Paul (Rom. 5:14; 1 Cor. 15:22). In the latter passage Paul says not a word of Adam's sin, but only of his death,—the whole chapter treating, not of sin, but of death and the resurrection. This passage, therefore, can hardly be considered a plain statement of the theory. The other, in Romans, is confessedly so far from plain, that it is difficult to make it agree with any theory; but the most evident meaning, to one who has no theory to support, is, that sin began with Adam, and the consequences of sin, which are moral and physical evil, began also with him; and as he thus set in motion a series of evil tendencies which we find in our organization, and which Paul elsewhere calls the law of the members, and a series of evil circumstances which we find around us in the world, both of which are the occasion of sin, we may trace back [pg 465] to him the commencement of human disobedience. If the passage teaches anything more than this, it certainly does not teach it plainly or explicitly.