Wuttke, Christian Ethics, 1:102—“Aristotle makes the significant and almost surprising observation, that the character which has become evil by guilt can just as little be thrown off again at mere volition, as the person who has made himself sick by his own fault can become well again at mere volition; once become evil or sick, it stands no longer within his discretion to cease to be so; a stone, when once cast, cannot be caught back from its flight; and so is it with the character that has become evil.” He does not tell “how a reformation in character is possible,—moreover, he does not concede to evil any other than an individual effect,—knows nothing of any natural solidarity of evil in self-propagating, morally degenerated races” (Nic. Eth., 3:6, 7; 5:12; 7:2, 3; 10:10). The good nature, he says, “is evidently not within our power, but is by some kind of divine causality conferred upon the truly happy.”
Plato speaks of “that blind, many-headed wild beast of all that is evil within thee.”He repudiates the idea that men are naturally good, and says that, if this were true, all that would be needed to make them holy would be to shut them up, from their earliest years, so that they might not be corrupted by others. Republic, 4 (Jowett's translation, 11:276)—“There is a rising up of part of the soul against the whole of the soul.”Meno, 89—“The cause of corruption is from our parents, so that we never relinquish their evil way, or escape the blemish of their evil habit.” Horace, Ep., 1:10—“Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.” Latin proverb: “Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.”Pascal: “We are born unrighteous; for each one tends to himself, and the bent toward self is the beginning of all disorder.” Kant, in his Metaphysical Principles of Human Morals, speaks of “the indwelling of an evil principle side by side with the good one, or the radical evil of human nature,” and of “the contest between the good and the evil principles for the control of man.” “Hegel, pantheist as he was, declared that original sin is the nature of every man,—every man begins with it” (H. B. Smith).
Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, 4:3—“All is oblique: There's nothing level in our cursed natures, But direct villainy.” All's Well, 4:3—“As we are in ourselves, how weak we are! Merely our own traitors.” Measure for Measure, 1:2—“Our natures do pursue, Like rats that ravin down their proper bane, A thirsty evil, and when we drink, we die.” Hamlet, 3:1—“Virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock, but we shall relish of it.” Love's Labor Lost, 1:1—“Every man with his affects is born, Not by might mastered, but by special grace.” Winter's Tale, 1:2—“We should have answered Heaven boldly, Not guilty; the imposition cleared Hereditary ours”—that is, provided our hereditary connection with Adam had not made us guilty. On the theology of Shakespeare, see A. H. Strong, Great Poets, 196-211—“If any think it irrational to believe in man's depravity, guilt, and need of supernatural redemption, they must also be prepared to say that Shakespeare did not understand human nature.”
S. T. Coleridge, Omniana, at the end: “It is a fundamental article of Christianity that I am a fallen creature ... that an evil ground existed in my will, previously to any act or assignable moment of time in my consciousness; I am born a child of wrath. This fearful mystery I pretend not to understand. I cannot even conceive the possibility of it; but I know that it is so, ... and what is real must be possible.” A sceptic who gave his children no religious training, with the view of letting them each in mature years choose a faith for himself, reproved Coleridge for letting his garden run to weeds; but Coleridge replied, that he did not think it right to prejudice the soil in favor of roses and strawberries. Van Oosterzee: Rain and sunshine make weeds grow more quickly, but could not draw them out of the soil if the seeds did not lie there already; so evil education and example draw out sin, but do not implant it. Tennyson, Two Voices: “He finds a baseness in his blood, At such strange war with what is good, He cannot do the thing he would.” Robert Browning, Gold Hair: a Legend of Pornic: “The faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie—taught Original Sin, The corruption of Man's Heart.” Taine, Ancien Régime: “Savage, brigand and madman each of us harbors, in repose or manacled, but always living, in the recesses of his own heart.” Alexander Maclaren: “A great mass of knotted weeds growing in a stagnant pool is dragged toward you as you drag one filament.” Draw out one sin, and it brings with it the whole matted nature of sin.
Chief Justice Thompson, of Pennsylvania: “If those who preach had been lawyers previous to entering the ministry, they would know and say far more about the depravity [pg 582]of the human heart than they do. The old doctrine of total depravity is the only thing that can explain the falsehoods, the dishonesties, the licentiousness, and the murders which are so rife in the world. Education, refinement, and even a high order of talent, cannot overcome the inclination to evil which exists in the heart, and has taken possession of the very fibres of our nature.” See Edwards, Original Sin, in Works, 2:309-510; Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:259-307; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:231-238; Shedd, Discourses and Essays, 226-236.
Section IV.—Origin Of Sin In The Personal Act Of Adam.
With regard to the origin of this sinful nature which is common to the race, and which is the occasion of all actual transgressions, reason affords no light. The Scriptures, however, refer the origin of this nature to that free act of our first parents by which they turned away from God, corrupted themselves, and brought themselves under the penalties of the law.
Chandler, Spirit of Man, 76—“It is vain to attempt to sever the moral life of Christianity from the historical fact in which it is rooted. We may cordially assent to the assertion that the whole value of historical events is in their ideal significance. But in many cases, part of that which the idea signifies is the fact that it has been exhibited in history. The value and interest of the conquest of Greece over Persia lie in the significant idea of freedom and intelligence triumphing over despotic force; but surely a part, and a very important part, of the idea, is the fact that this triumph was won in a historical past, and the encouragement for the present which rests upon that fact. So too, the value of Christ's resurrection lies in its immense moral significance as a principle of life; but an essential part of that very significance is the fact that the principle was actually realized by One in whom mankind was summed up and expressed, and by whom, therefore, the power of realizing it is conferred on all who receive him.”
As it is important for us to know that redemption is not only ideal but actual, so it is important for us to know that sin is not an inevitable accompaniment of human nature, but that it had a historical beginning. Yet no a priori theory should prejudice our examination of the facts. We would preface our consideration of the Scriptural account, therefore, by stating that our view of inspiration would permit us to regard that account as inspired, even if it were mythical or allegorical. As God can use all methods of literary composition, so he can use all methods of instructing mankind that are consistent with essential truth. George Adam Smith observes that the myths and legends of primitive folk-lore are the intellectual equivalents of later philosophies and theories of the universe, and that “at no time has revelation refused to employ such human conceptions for the investiture and conveyance of the higher spiritual truths.” Sylvester Burnham: “Fiction and myth have not yet lost their value for the moral and religious teacher. What a knowledge of his own nature has shown man to be good for his own use, God surely may also have found to be good for his use. Nor would it of necessity affect the value of the Bible if the writer, in using for his purpose myth or fiction, supposed that he was using history. Only when the value of the truth of the teaching depends upon the historicity of the alleged fact, does it become impossible to use myth or fiction for the purpose of teaching.” See vol. 1, page 241 of this work, with quotations from Denney, Studies in Theology, 218, and Gore, in Lux Mundi, 356. Euripides: “Thou God of all! infuse light into the souls of men, whereby they may be enabled to know what is the root from which all their evils spring, and by what means they may avoid them!”