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

by Catharine Esther Beecher

In regard to these passages, we are to notice, as before, first, the facts revealed, and, next, the theories instituted in regard to them.

The facts are, that there are two classes of angels, those that have sinned and those that have not; that those that sinned kept not their first estate, but left their habitations; that God cast them down to hell, and that they are reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

These are all the facts disclosed. Not a word is said as to the cause or reason why some sinned and some did not, nor as to the mode or manner by which these events were brought about. Here the theories come in.

Those who maintain the depravity of the human mental constitution frame their theory on these passages thus:

It is here taught that there are a class of minds that have never sinned. There must be a cause for this diversity from man's experience. This cause is a perfect mental constitution. This, it is seen, is a mere assumption, without a word of proof from the passages quoted! What is quite as remarkable is, that this theory is maintained in the face of the concession that both Adam and the fallen angels were as well endowed as the unsinning angels in regard to mental constitution, and yet that they all sinned just as the descendants of Adam have done.

This dogma has been sustained by certain misconceptions that should be considered.

The first is in the use of the term "nature." As this word is ordinarily used, it signifies that constitution, received from the Author of all things, which makes certain results or effects invariable. Thus, when a fountain invariably sends forth bitter waters, it is called its "nature" to do so; when a tree invariably produces bitter fruit, this is called its "nature." Now if it was a fact that the human mind never acted right, but invariably wrong, it would be proper to apply this term, and to say that in its "nature" it was totally depraved.

But this is not the fact. "Sin is a transgression of law," and every child, from the first, sometimes obeys and sometimes disobeys the physical, social, and moral laws of God. No child ever invariably breaks them, but sometimes obeys and sometimes disobeys.

But theologians have mystified the subject by assuming the very thing to be proved, and then "reasoning in a circle." Thus they assume, not only without, but contrary to evidence, that all human minds invariably act wrong from the first; therefore there must be a cause, and this cause is the "nature" received, directly or indirectly, from the Creator. Then they assume that, as every mind is "totally depraved" in its "nature," it can no more produce holy acts than a corrupt tree can produce good fruit, or a bitter fountain send forth sweet waters.

Another misconception which has embarrassed this subject has arisen from the supposition that it is irreverent, and contrary to the Bible, to allow any limitation to almighty power, even in "the nature of things."