Systematic Theology (Volume 2 of 3)

by Augustus Hopkins Strong

Amiel says that the great defect of liberal Christianity is its superficial conception of sin. The tendency dates far back: Tertullian spoke of the soul as naturally Christian—“anima naturaliter Christiana.” The tendency has come down to modern times: Crane, The Religion of To-morrow, 246—“It is only when children grow up, and begin to absorb their environment, that they lose their artless loveliness.” A Rochester Unitarian preacher publicly declared it to be as much a duty to believe in the natural purity of man, as to believe in the natural purity of God. Dr. Lyman Abbott speaks of “the shadow which the Manichæan theology of Augustine, borrowed by Calvin, cast upon all children, in declaring them born to an inheritance of wrath as a viper's brood.” Dr. Abbott forgets that Augustine was the greatest opponent of Manichæanism, and that his doctrine of inherited guilt may be supplemented by a doctrine of inherited divine influences tending to salvation.

Prof. G. A. Coe tells us that “all children are within the household of God”; that “they are already members of his kingdom”; that “the adolescent change” is “a step not into the Christian life, but within the Christian life.” We are taught that salvation is by education. But education is only a way of presenting truth. It still remains needful that the soul should accept the truth. Pelagianism ignores or denies the presence in every child of a congenital selfishness which hinders acceptance of the truth, and which, without the working of the divine Spirit, will absolutely counteract the influence of the truth. Augustine was taught his guilt and helplessness by transgression, while Pelagius remained ignorant of the evil of his own heart. Pelagius might have said with Wordsworth, Prelude, 534—“I had approached, like other youths, the shield Of human nature from the golden side; And would have fought, even unto the death, to attest The quality of the metal which I saw.”

Schaff, on the Pelagian controversy, in Bib. Sac., 5:205-243—The controversy “resolves itself into the question whether redemption and sanctification are the work of man or of God. Pelagianism in its whole mode of thinking starts from man and seeks to work itself upward gradually, by means of an imaginary good-will, to holiness and communion with God. Augustinianism pursues the opposite way, deriving from God's unconditioned and all-working grace a new life and all power of working good. The first is led from freedom into a legal, self-righteous piety; the other rises from the slavery of sin to the glorious liberty of the children of God. For the first, revelation is of force only as an outward help, or the power of a high example; for the last, it is the inmost life, the very marrow and blood of the new man. The first involves an Ebionitic view of Christ, as noble man, not high-priest or king; the second finds in him one in whom dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The first makes conversion a process of gradual moral purification on the ground of original nature; with the last, it is a total change, in which the old passes away and all becomes new.... Rationalism is simply the form in which Pelagianism becomes theoretically complete. The high opinion which the Pelagian holds of the natural will is transferred with equal right by the Rationalist to the natural reason. The one does without grace, as the other does without revelation. Pelagian divinity is rationalistic. Rationalistic morality is Pelagian.” See this Compendium, page 89.

Allen, Religious Progress, 98-100—“Most of the mischief of religious controversy springs from the desire and determination to impute to one's opponent positions which he does not hold, or to draw inferences from his principles, insisting that he shall be held responsible for them, even though he declares that he does not teach them. We say that he ought to accept them; that he is bound logically to do so; that they are necessary deductions from his system; that the tendency of his teaching is in these [pg 600]directions; and then we denounce and condemn him for what he disowns. It was in this way that Augustine filled out for Pelagius the gaps in his scheme, which he thought it necessary to do, in order to make Pelagius's teaching consistent and complete; and Pelagius, in his turn, drew inferences from the Augustinian theology, about which Augustine would have preferred to maintain a discreet silence. Neither Augustine nor Calvin was anxious to make prominent the doctrine of the reprobation of the wicked to damnation, but preferred to dwell on the more attractive, more rational tenet of the elect to salvation, as subjects of the divine choice and approbation; substituting for the obnoxious word reprobation the milder, euphemistic word preterition. It was their opponents who were bent on forcing them out of their reserve, pushing them into what seemed the consistent sequence of their attitude, and then holding it up before the world for execration. And the same remark would apply to almost every theological contention that has embittered the church's experience.”

C. It rests upon false philosophical principles; as, for example: (a) that the human will is simply the faculty of volitions; whereas it is also, and chiefly, the faculty of self-determination to an ultimate end; (b) that the power of a contrary choice is essential to the existence of will; whereas the will fundamentally determined to self-gratification has this power only with respect to subordinate choices, and cannot by a single volition reverse its moral state; (c) that ability is the measure of obligation,—a principle which would diminish the sinner's responsibility, just in proportion to his progress in sin; (d) that law consists only in positive enactment; whereas it is the demand of perfect harmony with God, inwrought into man's moral nature; (e) that each human soul is immediately created by God, and holds no other relations to moral law than those which are individual; whereas all human souls are organically connected with each other, and together have a corporate relation to God's law, by virtue of their derivation from one common stock.

(a) Neander, Church History, 2:564-625, holds one of the fundamental principles of Pelagianism to be “the ability to choose, equally and at any moment, between good and evil.” There is no recognition of the law by which acts produce states; the power which repeated acts of evil possess to give a definite character and tendency to the will itself.—“Volition is an everlasting ‘tick,’ ‘tick,’ and swinging of the pendulum, but no moving forward of the hands of the clock follows.” “There is no continuity of moral life—no character, in man, angel, devil, or God.”—(b) See art. on Power of Contrary Choice, in Princeton Essays, 1:212-233; Pelagianism holds that no confirmation in holiness is possible. Thornwell, Theology: “The sinner is as free as the saint; the devil as the angel.” Harris, Philos. Basis of Theism, 399—“The theory that indifference is essential to freedom implies that will never acquires character; that voluntary action is atomistic, every act disintegrated from every other; that character, if acquired, would be incompatible with freedom.” “By mere volition the soul now a plenum can become a vacuum, or now a vacuum can become a plenum.” On the Pelagian view of freedom, see Julius Müller, Doctrine of Sin, 37-44.

(c) Ps. 79:8—“Remember not against us the iniquities of our forefathers”; 106:6—“We have sinned with our fathers.” Notice the analogy of individuals who suffer from the effects of parental mistakes or of national transgression. Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:316, 317—“Neither the atomistic nor the organic view of human nature is the complete truth.” Each must be complemented by the other. For statement of race-responsibility, see Dorner, Glaubenslehre, 2:30-39, 51-64, 161, 162 (System of Doctrine, 2:324-334, 345-359; 3:50-54)—“Among the Scripture proofs of the moral connection of the individual with the race are the visiting of the sins of the fathers upon the children; the obligation of the people to punish the sin of the individual, that the whole land may not incur guilt; the offering of sacrifice for a murder, the perpetrator of which is unknown. Achan's crime is charged to the whole people. The Jewish race is the better for its parentage, and other nations are the worse for theirs. The Hebrew people become a legal personality.

“Is it said that none are punished for the sins of their fathers unless they are like their fathers? But to be unlike their fathers requires a new heart. They who are not [pg 601]held accountable for the sins of their fathers are those who have recognized their responsibility for them, and have repented for their likeness to their ancestors. Only the self-isolating spirit says: ‘Am I my brother's keeper?’ (Gen. 4:9), and thinks to construct a constant equation between individual misfortune and individual sin. The calamities of the righteous led to an ethical conception of the relation of the individual to the community. Such sufferings show that men can love God disinterestedly, that the good has unselfish friends. These sufferings are substitutionary, when borne as belonging to the sufferer, not foreign to him, the guilt of others attaching to him by virtue of his national or race-relation to them. So Moses in Ex. 34:9, David in Ps. 51:6, Isaiah in Is. 59:9-16, recognize the connection between personal sin and race-sin.

“Christ restores the bond between man and his fellows, turns the hearts of the fathers to the children. He is the creator of a new race-consciousness. In him as the head we see ourselves bound to, and responsible for others. Love finds it morally impossible to isolate itself. It restores the consciousness of unity and the recognition of common guilt. Does every man stand for himself in the N. T.? This would be so, only if each man became a sinner solely by free and conscious personal decision, either in the present, or in a past state of existence. But this is not Scriptural. Something comes before personal transgression: ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6). Personality is the stronger for recognizing the race-sin. We have common joy in the victories of the good; so in shameful lapses we have sorrow. These are not our worst moments, but our best,—there is something great in them. Original sin must be displeasing to God; for it perverts the reason, destroys likeness to God, excludes from communion with God, makes redemption necessary, leads to actual sin, influences future generations. But to complain of God for permitting its propagation is to complain of his not destroying the race,—that is, to complain of one's own existence.” See Shedd, Hist. Doctrine, 2:93-110; Hagenbach, Hist. Doctrine, 1:287, 296-310; Martensen, Dogmatics, 354-362; Princeton Essays, 1:74-97; Dabney, Theology, 296-302, 314, 315.