Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors

by James Freeman Clarke

If we were to sum up the doctrine of the apostle Paul on this subject, it would be thus:—

1. The first man, Adam, consisted, as we all consist, of nature and will. His nature consisted of innocent tendencies and appetites. None were excessive; all were well balanced. His nature inclined him no more to evil than to good, but each faculty was in proper poise. The first sin, therefore, could not have been a gross one; it was a simple transgression; but its effect was to introduce what the apostle calls death; that is, a diseased or corrupt nature. The process is this: With the first conscious and free transgression there arises a sense of guilt. This sense of guilt leads the soul away from God. Adam and Eve hide in the garden. Every act of sin tends to create a habit, and so destroys the moral equipoise. There hence arises a tendency towards evil, and from good; and this is called death, because it takes us away from God, who is the source of life.

2. A tendency towards evil is thus introduced into the world by the transgression of the first man. His descendants are now born with a nature which is not in equipoise, but which leans more towards evil than towards good. Their will remains free as before; but they cannot perform the same amount of good as before. These corrupt tendencies tempt to greater sin than the pure tendencies did, and, whenever yielded to, bring a greater amount of moral evil into the race.

3. Things, therefore, are thus growing worse continually; for every new act of sin makes it easier to sin again. And this tendency to death, or estrangement from God, must go [pg 146] on increasing, unless some antagonist principle can be communicated to the race. This is actually done by Jesus Christ. The principle of life which Christ introduces consists in reconciliation to God. Sin separates us from God, and therefore tends to death. Christ reconciles us to God, and so gives life. The way in which Christ reconciles us to God is by manifesting God's pardoning and saving love to the sinful soul. In his own life, but especially by his death, he communicates this pardoning love, and so produces the atonement. This is the central, Pauline view of the relation of Adam and Christ to the race. Adam introduces death into the world: Christ introduces life. He does not speak at all of imputation, or transfer of guilt; but he speaks of an actual communication of death and life. Adam and Christ both stand in actual, and not merely ideal, connection with the whole race of man. Adam is a living soul; Christ, a life-giving spirit. By inheritance, we receive a depraved life of the soul from Adam; by communion, we receive an eternal or spiritual life from Christ. And, in regard to both of these acts, the notion of blame or merit is entirely excluded. We are not to blame for our inherited depravity derived from Adam. We deserve no credit for the salvation which comes to us from Christ. The compensation for the misfortune of inherited evil is the free gift of divine goodness in Jesus.

We have thus considered the truth and the error contained in the Orthodox doctrine of the fall. The truth of it is in its assertion of a depravity of nature, to which we are liable in consequence of ancestral sins: the error is in imputing guilt to us in consequence of them.

§ 7. Orthodox View of Total Depravity and Inability.

In speaking of the fall of man, we necessarily anticipated somewhat the doctrine of total depravity. Still, we must say something further on this doctrine, because it is so important in the Church system: it is, indeed, at its foundation. Those who accept, in its strictness, the doctrine of total [pg 147] depravity cannot avoid any point of the severest Calvinism. Schleiermacher has shown, in his “Essay on Election,” that this latter doctrine necessarily follows the doctrine of total depravity; for, if man is wholly depraved, he has no power to do anything for his own conversion; therefore God must do it. And if some are converted, and not others, it must be because God chooses to convert some, and does not choose to convert others.

Let us look, then, at what Orthodoxy says of the extent of human depravity. In all the principal creeds, this is stated to be unlimited. Man's sin is total and entire. There is nothing good in him. The Westminster Confession and the Confession of the New England Congregational churches describe him as “dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.” Other creeds use similar language.

In considering this theory, we are struck at first by the circumstance, that the Bible gives it very little support. The Bible continually speaks of man as a sinner; but there are very few texts which can, without straining, be made to seem to teach that he is totally depraved. Let us examine a few of them.