The Transmission Mode against the Imputation Mode.
“The common doctrine has been, that Adam's posterity, unless saved by Christ, are damned on account of Adam's sin, and that this is just, because his sin is imputed or transferred to them. By imputation his sin becomes their sin.
“When the justice of such a transfer is demanded, it is said that the constitution which God has established makes the transfer just.
“To this it may be replied, that the same way it may be proved just to damn a man without any sin at all, either personal or imputed. We need only to resolve it into a sovereign constitution of God.”
The Andover and New Haven theologians regard both the Catholic and the Princeton modes as utterly unsatisfactory, and offer instead the mode of constitutional transmission as relieving the difficulties.
But Dr. Woods thus argues the case against them, and appeals powerfully to “intelligent and candid men:”
Dr. Woods in behalf of the Catholic Mode against the Constitutional Transmission Mode.
“And is there not just as much reason to urge this objection against the theory just named? Its advocates hold that God [pg 033]brings the whole human race into existence without holiness, and with such propensities and in such circumstances as will certainly lead them into sin; and that he brings them into this fearful condition in consequence of the sin of their first father, without any fault of their own. Now, as far as the divine justice or goodness is concerned, what great difference is there between our being depraved at first, and being in such circumstances as will certainly lead to depravity the moment moral action begins? Will not the latter as infallibly bring about our destruction as the former? And how is it more compatible with the justice or the goodness of God to put us into one of these conditions than into the other, when they are both equally fatal? It is said that our natural appetites and propensities and our outward circumstances do not lead us into sin by any absolute or physical necessity; but they do in all cases certainly lead us into sin, and God knows that they will when he appoints them for us. Now, how can our merciful Father voluntarily place us, while feeble, helpless infants, in such circumstances as he knows beforehand will be the certain occasion of our sin and ruin?... What difference does it make, either as to God's character, or the result of his proceedings, whether he constitutes us sinners at first, or knowingly places us in such circumstances that we shall certainly become sinners, and that very soon? Must not God's design as to our being sinners be the same in one case as in the other; and must not the final result be the same? Is not one of these states of mankind fraught with as many and as great evils as the other? What ground of preference then would any man have?...
“Let intelligent, candid men, who do not believe either of these schemes, say whether one of them is not open to as many objections as the other.”
The idea of a preëxistence of the race before Adam, is not held by any denomination.