A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory

by Albert Taylor Bledsoe

Section III.

The imputation of sin not consistent with human, much less with the divine goodness.

There are few persons whose feelings will allow them to be consistent advocates of the doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin. “To many other divines,” says Bishop Burnet, “this seems a harsh and inconceivable opinion: it seems repugnant to the justice and goodness of God to reckon men guilty of sin which they never committed, and to punish them in their souls eternally for that which is no act of theirs.”[181] It certainly “seems very hard,” as the author says, “to apprehend how persons who have never sinned, but are only unhappily descended, should be, in consequence of that, under so great a misery.” But how to escape the pressure of this stupendous difficulty is the question. There are many who cannot endure it; or rather, there are very few who can endure it; but, as Bishop Burnet says, they find no difficulty in the idea of temporal punishment on account of Adam's sin. “This, they think, is easily enough reconcilable with the notions of justice and goodness, since this is only a temporary punishment relating to men's persons.”[182] But do they not sacrifice their logic to their feelings? Let us see.

This view of a limited imputation, and a limited punishment, is not confined to the Church of England. It prevails to a greater or less extent in all denominations. But President Edwards has, we think, unanswerably exposed the inconsistency [pg 260] of its advocates. “One of them supposes,” says he, “that this sin, though truly imputed to infants, so that thereby they are exposed to a proper punishment, yet is not imputed to them in such a degree, as that upon this account they should be liable to eternal punishment, as Adam himself was, but only to temporal death, or annihilation; Adam himself, the immediate actor, being made infinitely more guilty of it than his posterity. On which I would observe, that to suppose God imputes, not all the guilt of Adam, but only some little part of it, relieves nothing but his imagination. To think of poor little infants bearing such torments for Adam's sin, as they sometimes do in this world, and these torments ending in death and annihilation, may sit easier on the imagination, than to conceive of their suffering eternal misery for it; but it does not at all relieve one's reason. There is no rule of reason that can be supposed to lie against imputing a sin in the whole of it, which was committed by one, to another who did not personally commit it, but will also lie against its being so imputed and punished in part; for all the reasons (if there be any) lie against the imputation, not the quality or degree of what is imputed. If there be any rule of reason that is strong and good, lying against a proper derivation or communication of guilt from one that acted to another that did not act, then it lies against all that is of that nature.... If these reasons are good, all the difference is this: that to bring a great punishment on infants for Adam's sin, is a great act of injustice, and to bring a comparatively smaller punishment is a smaller act of injustice; but not, that this is not as truly and demonstrably an act of injustice as the other.”[183]

We hold this to be a solid and unanswerable argument; and we hold also, that God can no more commit a small act of injustice than a great one. Hence, in the eye of reason, there is no medium between rejecting the whole of the imputation of Adam's sin, and ceasing to object against the imputation of the whole of it, as inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God. We may arbitrarily wipe out a portion of it in order to relieve our imagination; but this brings no relief to the calm and passionless reason. It may still the wild tumults of emotion, but it cannot silence the voice of the intellect. Why not relieve [pg 261] both the imagination and the reason? Why not wipe out the whole dark film of imputation, and permit the glad eye to open on the bright glory of God's infinite goodness?

The wonder is, that when Edwards had carried out his logic to such a conclusion, he did not regard his argument as a perfect reductio ad absurdum. The wonder is, that when he had carried out his logic to the position, that it might well consist with the justice of God to impute the whole of Adam's sin to “poor little infants,” as he calls them, and then cause them to endure “eternal torments for it,” his whole nature did not recoil from such a conclusion with indescribable horror. For our part, highly as we value logical consistency, we should prefer a little incoherency in our reasoning, a little flexibility in our logic, rather than bear even one “poor little infant” on the hard, unyielding point of it into the torments of hell forever.

St. Augustine was the great founder of the doctrine of the imputation of sin. But although he did more than any other person to give this doctrine a hold upon the mind of the Christian world, it never had a perfect hold upon his own mind. So far from being able to reconcile it with the divine goodness, he could not reconcile it with his own goodness. For this purpose, he employed the theory that all the posterity of Adam were, in the most literal sense, already in him, and sinned in him—in his person; and that Adam's sin is therefore justly imputed to all his posterity.[184] He also appeals to revelation. “St. Augustine,” as Father Almeyda truly says, “and the fathers who follow him, take the fundamental principle of their doctrine (which affirms that infants without baptism will endure eternal pain) from the sentence which the Supreme Judge is to pronounce at the last day. We know that the Lord, dividing the human race into two portions, will put the elect on the right hand, and the reprobate on the left; and he will say to those on the left, Depart into eternal fire. St. Augustine then argues, that infants will not be on the right, because Jesus Christ has positively excluded all those who shall not be born again of water and of the Holy Spirit: then they will be on the left; and thus they will be comprehended in the damnation of eternal fire, which the Lord will pronounce against those who shall [pg 262] be on the left side: for having no more than two hands, and only two places and two sentences, since, then, there are infants which God does not favour, it follows that they will be comprehended in the sentence of the reprobate, which is not only a privation of the sight of God, but also the pain of fire.”[185] Such is the ground, and such the logic, on which St. Augustine and his followers erected that portentous scheme, that awful speculation, which has so long cast a dark cloud over the glory of the Christian world, and prevented it from reflecting the bright, cheering beams of the divine goodness.

But, what! could St. Augustine find rest in his own views,—in his own logic? Did he really banish all non-elect infants into the region of penal fire and everlasting woe? If he adhered to the literal meaning of the words of revelation, as he understood them, he was certainly bound to do so; but did he really and consistently do it? Did he really bind the “poor little” reprobate, because it had sinned in Adam, in chains of adamant, and leave it to writhe beneath the fierce inquisitorial fury of the everlasting flames? Did he really extract the vials of such exquisite and unprovoked wrath from the essence of infinite goodness itself? No: this was reserved for the superior logic and the sterner consistency of an iron age. But since it has been extracted, we may devoutly thank Almighty God, that it is now excluded from the hearts of men calling themselves Christians, and kept safely bottled up in their creeds and confessions.

St. Augustine could not endure the insufferable consequences of his own doctrine. Hence, in writing to his great friend, St. Jerome, he said, “in all sincerity: when I come to treat of the punishment of infants, believe that I find myself in great embarrassment, and I absolutely know not what to reply.” Writing against Julian, he adds: “I do not say that those who die without baptism will be punished with a torment such that it would be better for them if they had never been born.” And again: “Those who, besides original sin which they have contracted, have not committed any other, will be subjected to a pain the most mild of all.”[186] Thus by adopting a wrong interpretation, the principles of which were but little understood in his time, St. Augustine banished all unbaptized infants from the [pg 263] kingdom of light; but yet he could hardly find it in his heart to condemn them to the outer darkness. He had too great a regard for the word of God, as he understood it, to permit non-elect infants to reign with Christ in heaven; and, on the other hand, he was too severely pressed by the generous impulses of his nature, nay, by the eternal dictates of truth and goodness, to permit him to consign them really to the “fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” Hence, although Christ knew of “but two places,” he fitted up a third, to see them in which, was, as Edwards would say, “more agreeable to his imagination.”

It was the sublime but unsteady genius of St. Augustine that caused this doctrine of the damnation of infants to be received into the Christian world, and find its way into the council of Trent. That celebrated council not only adopted the views of St. Augustine on this subject, but also most perfectly reflected all his hesitation and inconsistency. Widely as its members differed on other points, they all agreed that unbaptized infants should be excluded from the kingdom of heaven. There was but little unanimity however, as to the best method of disposing of them. The Dominicans fitted up a dark, subterraneous cavern for them, in which there is no fire, at least none such as that of the infernal regions, and in which they might be at least as happy as monks. This place was called Limbo—which, we suppose, is to Purgatory, about what the varioloid is to the smallpox. The Franciscans, more humane in their doctrine, determined that “dear little infants,” though they had never felt the sanctifying influences of holy water, should yet reside, not in dark caverns and holes of the earth, but in the sweet light and pure air of the upper world. Well done, noble Franciscan! we honour thee for thy sweet fancy! Surely thou wert not, like other monks, made so altogether fierce by dark keeping, that thou couldest not delight to see in God's blessed, beautiful world, a smiling infant!