Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

To avoid this dilemma, theologians have instituted the following theories:

The first class teach that the first pair of the human race were made with perfect minds, and then stood as representatives of the race and sinned for the whole. The first part of the penalty came on the actual sinners in the ruin of their own mental constitution, and then, all men being represented in Adam and Eve, the Creator "imputed" this sin to all their posterity, and, as a penalty, all receive a depraved mental constitution.

That is to say, though each of the unborn millions descended from Adam was innocent of the crime, in order to be just, God "imputes" it to each, and, as a penalty, ruins each in its organization, when He has full power to make perfect minds.

Another class assume that the Creator established such a constitution of things that the nature of one mind is transmitted to all its myriad descendants, by the same law as the nature of a plant is included in one seed and is transmitted to all of its future kind. The first parents of our race, receiving perfect minds from their Creator, ruined them by one act of disobedience. Then, by the above law, instituted by their Maker, they transmitted this depraved constitution of mind to all their descendants.

This mode of evading responsibility is about as honorable as if a teacher should so construct springs and traps for his pupils that one little fellow, when forbidden to do it, should touch a spring that should cut off his own hand, and thus move other springs that would maim all the rest of the school, while the master lays all the blame on the child that disobeyed.

Another class teach that the first man and woman of the race were made with perfect minds, and then such a constitution of things was instituted by God that every mind of the human race was so existing with or in them, that when Adam and Eve voluntarily disobeyed the Creator's first law, every one of their descendants voluntarily did the same thing; and then, as a penalty for the deed, the parent and every one of the embryo descendants became "totally depraved."

This theory, which makes every human being guilty of a crime thousands of years before we were born, and for which we are suffering the most awful of all penalties, has nearly passed away to the puerilities of the old schoolmen, and yet there are some of the most popular professors in our largest and most respectable theological seminaries who are publicly advocating it at this very time.

Another method promulgated is the assumption that all the race were originally created perfect, and then, while in the possession of every possible advantage for virtue and happiness, they ruined themselves in a previous state of existence. This is the only theory which really meets the difficulty, and relieves the character of the Creator from being the guilty author of depraved minds.

But this theory, even if it could be established by revelation, does not remedy the strong argument of reason and experience against the wisdom and benevolence of the Creator, on the assumption of a depraved constitution of mind. The man denying a revelation, who is called upon to receive one, can say, Here is a race, every one of whom is ruined, and, so far as I can see, in the making of his mind by the Creator. Therefore this Creator, by his works, is shown to be a being of infinite folly and malignity, from whom no reliable revelation is possible.

Granting the mind to be depraved, the light of reason inevitably guides to a weak or malevolent Creator. To illustrate this, suppose a man is seen manufacturing beautiful porcelain vases, and out of the "clay of the same lump," as he makes them, he spoils every one, cracking, marring, and defacing them in the very process of manufacture. Now suppose this person should turn to a witness, and offer to instruct him in the best way of doing things, what would be the common-sense reply? Exactly that which would be due to a Creator who has ruined every mind he sent into this world, and then proposes to reveal the right way for those ruined creatures to act!