According to this view, all men are born physically and morally depraved; this native depravity is the source of all actual sin, and is itself sin; in strictness of speech, it is this native depravity, and this only, which God imputes to men. So far as man's physical nature is concerned, this inborn sinfulness has descended by natural laws of propagation from Adam to all his posterity. The soul is immediately created by God, but it becomes actively corrupt so soon as it is united to the body. Inborn sinfulness is the consequence, though not the penalty, of Adam's transgression.
There is a sense, therefore, in which Adam's sin may be said to be imputed to his descendants,—it is imputed, not immediately, as if they had been in Adam or were so represented in him that it could be charged directly to them, corruption not intervening,—but it is imputed mediately, through and on account of the intervening corruption which resulted from Adam's sin. As on the Federal theory imputation is the cause of depravity, so on this theory depravity is the cause of imputation. In Rom. 5:12, “death passed unto all men, for that all sinned,” signifies: “death physical, spiritual, and eternal passed upon all men, because all sinned by possessing a depraved nature.”
See Placeus, De Imputatione Primi Peccati Adami, in Opera, 1:709—“The sensitive soul is produced from the parent; the intellectual or rational soul is directly created. The soul, on entering the corrupted physical nature, is not passively corrupted, but becomes corrupt actively, accommodating itself to the other part of human nature in character.” 710—So this soul “contracts from the vitiosity of the dispositions of the body a corresponding vitiosity, not so much by the action of the body upon the soul, as by that essential appetite of the soul by which it unites itself to the body in a way accommodated to the dispositions of the body, as liquid put into a bowl accommodates itself to the figure of a bowl—sicut vinum in vase acetoso. God was therefore neither the author of Adam's fall, nor of the propagation of sin.”
Herzog, Encyclopædia, art.: Placeus—“In the title of his works we read ‘Placæus’; he himself, however, wrote ‘Placeus,’ which is the more correct Latin form [of the French ‘de la Place’]. In Adam's first sin, Placeus distinguished between the actual sinning and the first habitual sin (corrupted disposition). The former was transient; the latter clung to his person, and was propagated to all. It is truly sin, and it is imputed to all, since it makes all condemnable. Placeus believes in the imputation of this corrupted disposition, but not in the imputation of the first act of Adam, except mediately, through the imputation of the inherited depravity.” Fisher, Discussions, 389—“Mere native corruption is the whole of original sin. Placeus justifies his use of the term ‘imputation’ by Rom. 2:26—‘If therefore the uncircumcision keep the ordinances of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be reckoned [imputed] for circumcision?’ Our own depravity is the necessary condition of the imputation of Adam's sin, just as our own faith is the necessary condition of the imputation of Christ's righteousness.”
Advocates of Mediate Imputation are, in Great Britain, G. Payne, in his book entitled: Original Sin; John Caird, Fund. Ideas of Christianity, 1:196-332; and James S. Candlish, Biblical Doctrine of Sin, 111-122; in America, H. B. Smith, in his System of Christian Doctrine, 169, 284, 285, 314-323; and E. G. Robinson, Christian Theology. The editor of Dr. Smith's work says: “On the whole, he favored the theory of Mediate Imputation. There is a note which reads thus: ‘Neither Mediate nor Immediate Imputation is wholly satisfactory.’ Understand by ‘Mediate Imputation’ a full statement of the facts in the case, and the author accepted it; understand by it a theory professing to give the final explanation of the facts, and it was ‘not wholly satisfactory.’ ”Dr. Smith himself says, 316—“Original sin is a doctrine respecting the moral conditions of human nature as from Adam—generic: and it is not a doctrine respecting personal [pg 618]liabilities and desert. For the latter, we need more and other circumstances. Strictly speaking, it is not sin, which is ill-deserving, but only the sinner. The ultimate distinction is here: There is a well-grounded difference to be made between personal desert, strictly personal character and liabilities (of each individual under the divine law, as applied specifically, e. g., in the last adjudication), and a generic moral condition—the antecedent ground of such personal character.
“The distinction, however, is not between what has moral quality and what has not, but between the moral state of each as a member of the race, and his personal liabilities and desert as an individual. This original sin would wear to us only the character of evil, and not of sinfulness, were it not for the fact that we feel guilty in view of our corruption when it becomes known to us in our own acts. Then there is involved in it not merely a sense of evil and misery, but also a sense of guilt; moreover, redemption is also necessary to remove it, which shows that it is a moral state. Here is the point of junction between the two extreme positions, that we sinned in Adam, and that all sin consists in sinning. The guilt of Adam's sin is—this exposure, this liability on account of such native corruption, our having the same nature in the same moral bias. The guilt of Adam's sin is not to be separated from the existence of this evil disposition. And this guilt is what is imputed to us.” See art. on H. B. Smith, in Presb. Rev., 1881; “He did not fully acquiesce in Placeus's view, which makes the corrupt nature by descent the only ground of imputation.”
The theory of Mediate Imputation is exposed to the following objections:
A. It gives no explanation of man's responsibility for his inborn depravity. No explanation of this is possible, which does not regard man's depravity as having had its origin in a free personal act, either of the individual, or of collective human nature in its first father and head. But this participation of all men in Adam's sin the theory expressly denies.
The theory holds that we are responsible for the effect, but not for the cause—“post Adamum, non propter Adamum.” But, says Julius Müller, Doct. Sin, 2:209, 331—“If this sinful tendency be in us solely through the act of others, and not through our own deed, they, and not we, are responsible for it,—it is not our guilt, but our misfortune. And even as to actual sins which spring from this inherent sinful tendency, these are not strictly our own, but the acts of our first parents through us. Why impute them to us as actual sins, for which we are to be condemned? Thus, if we deny the existence of guilt, we destroy the reality of sin, and vice versa.” Thornwell, Theology, 1:348, 349—This theory “does not explain the sense of guilt, as connected with depravity of nature,—how the feeling of ill-desert can arise in relation to a state of mind of which we have been only passive recipients. The child does not reproach himself for the afflictions which a father's follies have brought upon him. But our inward corruption we do feel to be our own fault,—it is our crime as well as our shame.”
B. Since the origination of this corrupt nature cannot be charged to the account of man, man's inheritance of it must be regarded in the light of an arbitrary divine infliction—a conclusion which reflects upon the justice of God. Man is not only condemned for a sinfulness of which God is the author, but is condemned without any real probation, either individual or collective.