2. Sin

2. Sin

2. Sin

1. What are the principal philosophical theories concerning sin and what must be introduced against them?

We have:

a)   The dualistic theory, that sin is an inseparable characteristic of matter. Spirit = good, matter = evil.

Against it counts:

1.   This theory, if it does not wish to see God as author of sin, must posit something that exists as a substance independently of God.

2.   It removes the moral element from the concept of sin to replace it with a physical element and thereby weakens the concept of sin.

3.   It also removes the responsibility of man by making sin necessary.

b)   The theory that sin is merely a limitation of existence. All existence is good, only the lack of existence, that is, finitude and limitedness, is evil. Finite man must always remain sinful. This view: 1) is pantheistic. 2) Removes all responsibility. Only weakness, viewed in this way, is evil. Might is right.

c)   The theory that sin is a necessary reaction against what is good. For its existence, everything in the world rests on opposition. There is no rest without weariness, no joy without sorrow, no desire without pain, no good without evil. This also makes sin necessary.

d)   Schleiermacher’s theory. Sin is the imperfection that arises because the higher principle of God-consciousness does not rule the lower principle of self-consciousness and world-consciousness. According to this conception,

1.   Sin is general and absolutely necessary. Even in the original state of man it was unavoidable.

2.   Here the concepts of sin and guilt become merely subjective.

e)   The theory that the sensual nature of man is the seat and origin of sin. However:

1.   The worst and most sinful beings, namely the devil and the demons, are not sensual because they have no body.

2.   The most hateful of all sins have nothing to do with the body; for example, pride.

3.   This view would justify the monastic system and asceticism, which, however, are not approved by Scripture.

4.   According to this theory, the older a man gets and the more the sensual nature in him dies down, the more he should also grow in holiness. This is not the case.

5.   When Scripture speaks of sin as “flesh,” this has another basis, for thereby is expressed not one’s sensual character but ungodliness, God-forsakenness, the spiritual death of the state of sin.

f)   The theory that all sin is selfishness. Of all theories, this one comes closest to the truth. Against it, however, we have to note the following:

1.   There is unselfish sin. When, for example, a mother, out of an excessive love for her deceased child, in despair takes her own life, this suicide is sin. This, however, is plainly not to be called selfishness.

2.   In some sense there is selfish virtue. Man has duties toward himself. He has to esteem the image of God that is in him and he cannot hate is own flesh. God’s word requires love to our neighbor as ourselves.

3.   All attempts to give a material definition of sin proceed from the presupposition that what they describe as sin also contains the property of sin per se, apart from any relationship to God. That is, one searches for a definition that will not only be material but also excludes God. And every definition that satisfies this demand is rationalistic and deistic in character, therefore useless for the Christian concept of sin. Sin, in the strict sense, is only conceivable as sin against God, and one can speak of sin against one’s neighbor only in a derivative and figurative sense. The feature of a relationship to God is essential for the concept of sin, and so has to be made part of the definition. If there were no God, one could not speak of sin. There would be selfishness and sensuality and love of the world, but all this, though one could call it evil, does not have a specifically sinful character because it is entirely lacking any relationship to God. It is absolutely necessary to grasp this clearly. It is not selfishness as such that constitutes the essence of sin, but selfishness as shutting oneself off toward God, as seeking after our own honor while not wanting God’s honor. If one remains committed to the negative concept of selfishness, sin is still presented as separate from relationship to God. However, to the negative side turned inward corresponds a positive side turned outward: enmity against God. Conversely, if one seeks the essence of the good in love, then this love, too, if it is thought of apart from relationship to God, is not the genuine, holy, spiritual love to which the predicate “good” can be attributed in the fullest sense of the word. So, if the mother commits suicide out of love for her deceased child, then love toward God, which should be more to her, recedes into the background and her first love becomes sin to her. And if one spares oneself and out of self-love does not follow a blind impulse to self-sacrifice because one knows that because of God’s will one may not sacrifice or endanger oneself, then in such selfishness a kernel of genuine, spiritual good can be veiled. One sees, therefore, how relationship to God determines everything, making sin to be sin and good to be good.

2. What characteristics, in consequence, belong to the scriptural concept of sin?

a)   Sin is a specific evil. It is not to be confused with physical evil, with what is unpleasant. Above the terrain of the physical lies that of the ethical, where the antithesis between good and evil reigns. All beings that belong to this reasoning sphere must be one or the other, good or evil. An in-between state, a neutral state between these two, is not possible. There are stages in good and stages in evil, but there are no stages between good and evil. The transition between evil and good is qualitative, not quantitative. A being that is good becomes evil not by a decrease in his goodness but by a radical change in it, by passing over to sin. And one is not to think of stages in evil and good, as if in being less advanced in evil an element of goodness still lurks and, vice versa, in a less developed holiness an element of sin still lurks. In the former, everything is sin, and in the latter, everything is good. But as with the former all the sin potentially present need not yet have come to development, so with the latter goodness can be present as a seed while it has not yet increased. Thus on both sides, progression is possible without thereby sin and virtue having to be set in opposition to each other as quantitative entities. It is certainly true that everything less good is an evil, but that only says that for man the quantitative lessening of the good is impossible without it being accompanied by the qualitative changing of good to evil. Only in the case of a reduction of the entire development of man would a reduction of good be conceivable in which evil does not immediately enter in. All that man is should, as moral power, work goodness in him. But also in the good man there is expansion, the capacity for growth. It is likewise with sinful man. He is entirely evil, but his evil nature can develop, and to the same degree the level of sin also increase.

b)   Sin always has reference to a law—and not just to a law in general, but specifically to a law of God. Precisely because they saw clearly that one cannot arrive at a correct understanding of sin if one does not establish it beginning with God, the old dogmaticians placed much emphasis on this element when they said that sin is nonconformity to God’s law. That is the formal aspect of sin. If one can now describe the content of the law materially, then the problem would be solved as to what the material aspect of sin is. Now Scripture teaches that the law is fulfilled in love, and all its demands may be reduced to the one demand of love. That law, however, is the expression of God’s being insofar as it is a norm. Therefore, we cannot go further than to affirm that love for God is the material aspect of moral goodness and that the opposite of this is the material aspect of moral evil.

c)   God’s law has to do not merely with already actually present persons, but also with representative and ideally present persons. Without yet being nonconformed to it habitu and actu [in disposition and act], one can be so by imputation, by reckoning. That is why sin extends to status, to being reckoned in the judgment of God. And here the rule holds that originally in Adam the actus [act] determined the status, but that subsequently for all his posterity status has determined actus. To give a complete definition of sin, we will have to say that it is nonconformity to God’s law in status [status], habitus [disposition], and actus [act].

d)   Sin includes guilt and pollution. Pollution is understood as spiritual, inherent depravity to which a sinful soul falls prey. Pollution is therefore not present before the soul itself is present. It is inconceivable without antecedent and subsequent guilt. Guilt, however, is conceivable without pollution. In Adam’s first sinful motion, guilt and pollution coincided. Guilt does not necessarily presuppose the actual presence of the soul. One can be guilty covenantally. It is not something that was a reality in man but a reality with respect to man. Guilt exists in the judgment of God. It is called reatus [liability] by the theologians.

One distinguishes, then, between a) reatus culpae [liability to guilt] and b) reatus poenae [liability to punishment].

By reatus culpae, one means the turpitude and criminality that is inseparable from any sin in the judgment of God and men. As something individual, it cannot be transmitted to another. It is otherwise for reatus poenae, obligation to punishment. This is transferable.

e)   As concerns its center, sin resides in the will of man. Its effects extend also to the intellect and the capacity for emotions, to the entire man, the body included. The entire man is, in his sinful state, the object of God’s displeasure. In its origination, however, sin comes from the will, namely from the will understood as voluntas, as the deeper spiritual orientation of man. To conceive of a human being that at the same time would possess a perfect will and a deficient intellectual and emotional life is impermissible. But if we imagine such a being, it could not be called sinful. In Christ there was something like this during His state of humiliation, but in His will there was nothing sinful and therefore He was pure in Himself and had no need of ethical sanctification, just as He did not need justification for Himself. One should keep in view, however, that the will of man is a reasoning will and not blind instinct, and furthermore that it is the will of a responsive being that necessarily has to react to the objects of its will. Man can only desire by means of his intellect and emotions, and so these three are closely connected such that they act together in every sinful deed. And the same is true for the habitus [disposition]. Our voluntas [will], too, is a moral tendency and inclination, going together with emotion. One may never forget that the three faculties of the soul in their distinctions are abstractions of what is given to us in our experience only as a living unity.

f)   We can be in a sinful status without possessing pollution, but guilt and pollution are both connected to a sinful habitus [disposition]. According to the Pelagians, in contrast, one cannot speak of a sinful habitus in a proper sense. Every sin, according to their conception, exists in actus [as act]. Only with the free act, with the choice of the will, do guilt and pollution emerge for man.

3. Describe in its general features the Pelagian doctrine of sin.

The principal position of the Pelagians is that our ability is the measure of our obligation and our responsibility to do good. In contrast, Augustine’s consciousness of his dependence is expressed in the prayer: “Da quod jebes et quod vis” [“Give what you command, and command what you will”]. The following positions were contained in the Pelagian postulate:

a)   The freedom of the will is liberum arbitrium [free will] as abstract possibility at every moment to turn in either direction. The will is thus formed, concerning its quality, without a cause. The will arises from a willing subject, but in this subject no basis is to be found or indicated in advance exactly why the will becomes good or evil.

b)   Accordingly, all sin exists in a clear, conscious, direct choice of evil.

c)   There is no original sin. Men today are born without virtue and without sin, morally neutral. Heredity and sin are two concepts that clearly exclude each other.

d)   This postulate also has a retroactive effect. That is to say, as little as innate virtue or innate sin is conceivable, just as little may innate holiness be thought of in Adam before the fall of our first parents. He was created by God in a state of innocence that stood below developed reasoning. Adam was neither good nor evil. He could only become either by his own free choice.

e)   When Adam fell, only his own nature was thereby changed. Cain, Abel, and Seth only became worse as the bad example of their parents was constantly before their eyes. The power of this example, however, does not at all necessarily lead to sin in all situations. Thus, every man is put to the test individually. Death is not a punitive evil, because children, who cannot have sinned, also die. There have also been adults, however, who have actually lived without sin.

f)   Redemption from sin apart from the gospel is possible. The light of the gospel makes easy, however, the complete obedience that is required. When the Pelagians nevertheless speak of grace, then by that they do not understand, as we do, the supernatural grace of the Holy Spirit but everything we receive from God’s goodness in the broadest sense of this word.

g)   Children do not have a moral character. Their baptism is only to be viewed as a sign of dedication to God. Augustine uses infant baptism as one of his most powerful arguments against the teaching of Pelagius. This is one of the strongest historical proofs for the antiquity of infant baptism, for if Pelagius had seen any chance to challenge the apostolic character of the baptism of infants, he surely would not have neglected to do it. He, to the contrary, had to make do with a symbolic interpretation of baptism and left the fact, as fact, stand untouched.

4. On what basis does this Pelagian doctrine of sin have to be condemned?

a)   The main proposition that our ability is the measure of our responsibility to do good conflicts with all testimonies of our conscience. It is an indisputable truth that with the increase of sin our inability to do good increases. Now if the Pelagian teaching were true, sin would free its own victims by relieving them of their responsibility. The more sinful a man would become, the smaller would be his responsibility. One may flatter oneself here and there with such a conception, and the sinful heart may try to hide behind its own inability; the conscience continues to testify against it. It teaches that our obligation and our responsibility are independent of what we are able to do in our sinful condition. Not what we can but what we ought to be determines our responsibility.

b)   To say that man by nature does not possess a moral character is to call him an animal. Everything that is not expressly a conscious choice of the will is thereby robbed of its moral quality. Now every man feels that his inclinations, his moods, his expressions of emotion are subject to the contrast between good and evil, that they possess a moral character. God’s children delight in His law according to the inner man [Rom 7:22]. Sin and virtue that are not connected with the root of his life are made superficial appendages to man.

c)   An uncaused choice of free will is not only metaphysically and psychologically inexplicable but also ethically worthless. If no other ground than coincidence can be given why a good deed did not turn out differently, then there is also no essential distinction in the deed itself by means of which both these products, respectively, would be produced. If the man as a character does not stand behind his act, the latter loses all value. Only as an exponent of character does an act possess the ethical quality that we are accustomed to ascribe to it.

d)   The Pelagian theory leaves the universality of sin entirely unexplained. The bad example of parents and ancestors is no basis of explanation. The possibility that all have sinned, as an abstract possibility, does not explain why they all have actually sinned. It is much more plausible to assume a universal predisposition to sin as basis for the universality of sin.

e)   The theory leaves no room for the activity of God’s grace. It is irreligious insofar as the essence of religion is situated in our dependence (both in willing and working) on God. The prayer for the influence of God’s Spirit to fit us for doing good is for the Pelagian an impossibility. Or if he can pray, he becomes in the same moment in which he prays rightly an Augustinian Christian.

5. What are the causes of the ambiguity of Roman Catholic teaching concerning sin?

a)   Before the Council of Trent little consensus ruled among theologians.

b)   The pronouncements of the council itself are not unambiguous.

c)   They are interpreted in different senses.

6. In what difficulty did the Tridentine Council find itself?

On the one hand, it had to reject the teaching of the Reformers, and on the other hand, it could not openly abandon the teaching of Augustine. And yet both agreed with each other. Augustine had taught what the Reformers taught.

7. What appears to be the actual Roman Catholic teaching concerning sin as natural or inherent evil?

a)   That sin in its essence must always exist in a conscious act of the will.

b)   That, consequently, indwelling concupiscence, which through the loss of original righteousness has the upper hand, can as such not yet be considered punishable sin.

c)   That the sinfulness of Adam’s posterity is a status rather than a condition, or at least is only a negative condition. It exists in the lack of something that should be present; it is the absence of original righteousness.

d)   Just for that reason it is removed in baptism quoad materiam [materially]. Concupiscence does remain, but does not have the character of sin.

8. What is meant by original sin, peccatum originale?

By that we understand:

a)   The sinful, guilty state into which we have come by Adam’s first sin.

b)   The inherent corruption with which, as the result of this state, we are born, is called a) hereditary guilt, b) hereditary pollution.

9. Do all assume a connection between Adam’s sin and ours?

No.

a)   As was shown above, Pelagian teaching on sin denies any real connection.

b)   The older Arminian theory teaches a natural impotence inherited from Adam, which, however, does not include any guilt for which we are not responsible and for which, rather, God owes us a remedy.

c)   The later Wesleyan Arminianism no longer denied that guilt adheres to this inborn corruption but still gave no explanation regarding on what legal ground this guilt rested.

d)   The New school theory teaches that the ground for their later becoming sinful is inborn in all men, but that this ground in itself cannot be called sin because sin exists exclusively in the clearly conscious, intentional violation of law.

10. What different theories have been formed to explain the data of Scripture concerning Adam’s fall and our sinful condition?

a)   The federal theory, which, by positing a covenant of works, has Adam representing us in his probation, as a consequence of which his sin becomes legally our sin. This is called immediate imputation.

b)   The theory of mediate imputation. This means that we are responsible for Adam’s sin only insofar as we possess the same sinful nature with him.

c)   The realistic theory, also called the Augustinian theory, according to which Adam’s sin has become our sin not only representatively but also really because we existed in Adam and sinned with him (compare also the preexistence theory).

11. Give the principal propositions that constitute the federal theory.

a)   Adam by nature was obliged to obey God, without thereby having any right to a reward.

b)   God had created him mutable, and he also possessed no right to an immutable state.

c)   His natural relationship to God already included that he, if sinning, must be punished by God.

d)   All this was a natural relationship in which Adam stood. Now to this natural relationship a covenant was added by God, which contained various positive elements.

e)   These positive elements were the following.

1.   An element of representation. Adam stood not just for himself but, by virtue of a legal ordering of God, for all his posterity.

2.   An element of probation with limited duration. While previously or otherwise Adam’s period of testing could have lasted forever with a constant possibility of a sinful choice, so now a fixed period of perseverance would have led to a condition of immutable virtue.

3.   An element of reward, ex pacto [by covenant]. By the free ordination of God, Adam received a right to eternal life if he fulfilled the conditions of the covenant of works.

f)   Now when it is said that these three elements are positive, that does not mean that within God’s being there was not an inclination to reveal Himself in such unremitting kindness to man. He is the God of the covenant, and it is intrinsic to His being that He wants to be. But man had no right to expect and to demand it; in so far is the covenant of works positive.

g)   By assuming the positive character of the covenant of works in this sense, we in no way intend to assert that Adam existed even for a single moment outside of the covenant of works. He was apparently created destined to be under it, and the garden in which he was placed was created to be a stage for his probation. The distinction between natural relationship and the covenant of works is logical and judicial, not temporal. That is, even when the covenant of works has served its purpose, the natural relationship remains in force in all circumstances, and also all the demands that stem from it still apply to man.

h)   The organic unity that exists between Adam and his posterity is not the ground but the means for the transmission of Adam’s sin to us. Now it can certainly be said that Adam must have one nature with us if he were to be our covenant head and his sin were to be imputed to us. An angel, for example, could not represent us federally. But, conversely, it does not follow that Adam, because he possesses our nature, now must represent us. The unity of the nature is only a conditio sine qua non. It is in no way the ground that excludes the possibility of the opposite. The actual relationship is such that God, with an eye to the covenant unity for which He intended humanity, also created it as a natural unity. As being reckoned in Christ by election entails that in God’s time one is born again of Christ through the Spirit, so being reckoned in Adam by the covenant of works entails that in God’s time one is born of Adam.

i)    The ultimate legal ground for this representation in Adam cannot by specified by us. We only can say that it:

1.   Was strictly juridical insofar as it reckoned with persons and not with the nature of man in the abstract.

2.   Has an archetypical example in the economy of the divine persons, in which the one person appears representatively for the others.

3.   Must be just simply because it is already factual. No other legal norm exists for us than the acts of God. Therefore, it is foolish to ask whether something that God does is right, as if we possessed an independent standard by which we could know that.

4.   Runs completely parallel with the representation of the elect in Christ, against which no Protestant Christian can object. If one has an objection to the imputation of sin and no objection to the imputation of righteousness, one thereby betrays that the objections that one advances rest more on self-interest than on a sense of justice. The covenant of grace is nothing other than a covenant of works accomplished in Christ, the fulfillment of which is given to us by grace.

j)    One can even go further and assert that in that covenant of works there were several stipulations that must be beneficial for man. As already seen,

(1)  his probation was temporally limited; (2) it was concentrated in one man; (3) it was made as clear and objective as possible; (4) the reward promised was as glorious and as great as possible. For all these reasons, man cannot do otherwise than accept gratefully the covenant of works in which God placed him.

k)   Through the covenant of works it is explained why the sin of our natural ancestors outside of Adam is not imputed to us. Imputation rests on the covenantal relation, and we stand in such a covenantal relation only to Adam and not to others.

l)    The covenant of works explains why Christ, though He assumed a human nature, was not under the curse as we are and why He could therefore assume human nature undefiled. The covenant of works was established with human persons in Adam. Because the person of Christ is the person of the Son of God, He was not included in the covenant of works.

m)  Adam’s first sin as act is representatively our sin. It is just as if we had sinned in it. God reckons it so according to His justice, and this verdict of God is called the imputation of Adam’s first sin. Imputation thus means “to put something on someone’s account,” whether it is required of him or is to his benefit. It is, however, only the reatus poenae [liability to punishment], not the reatus culpae [liability to guilt] of this first sin that is imputed to us. That reatus culpae is not transmittable. The reatus poenae, on the other hand, is imputed to us in the fullest sense of the word so that by this alone we are already condemned before God. It is a dangerous, and in its consequences far-reaching, error when one teaches that no one is condemned by God other than on the basis of his own inherent depravity and the guilt that is connected with it. Related to this error is the other error that all children (of whatever parents) who die before their use of reason are saved without exception. This goes a step still further than the preceding error, insofar as it denies that original corruption is condemnable but otherwise is completely on the same line. We must take a stand against this error: something is sin or not sin, guilt or not guilt. If sin is guilt, then it is that fully. Every sin and guilt is in itself worthy of eternal death. (The parallel with Christ would require that we do not yet become fully righteous by Christ’s imputed righteousness but only by our inherent righteousness that enters us based on the first.) Finally, it is illogical to say that I will not perish because of imputed original pollution but only on the basis of inherent original pollution if the latter is viewed as the necessary result of the former.

n)   Original pollution, inherent corruption, was both for Adam and for us a punishment for the first sin. For Adam it appeared immediately; for us it can only appear when our persons come into being. It is not the only but still the principal punishment of sin, and potentially contains eternal death, since it is separation from God of the σάρξ, “flesh.” While on the one hand it must thus be viewed as a penal consequence, on the other hand one can also view it as the basis of guilt. For there is no pollution without guilt. From all this it appears how sin perpetuates itself without end, how one sin flows from the other in order, in its turn, to give life to a third.

o)   The federal theory does not deny that smaller groups of humanity, considered apart from the covenantal relation with Adam, are also in many ways in solidarity and are punished for common sins. We hold, however, that this solidarity in smaller groups is limited, does not extend down to all following generations and does not stem from Adam through all preceding generations. Also, it is not a covenantal solidarity but it rests, so far as its legal ground is concerned, on the presence of the covenant of works. God can visit the sin of the parents upon the children, but He does not do that because juridically, the children have sinned in their parents as they have in Adam. He can do that because the children have already forfeited all life in Adam, are under the wrath of God, and God is free in the choice of the form in which He wills to bring the punishment of sin upon them. This fact stands on a line identical to the order that God follows in the covenant of grace, where He grants His promises to children of believing parents and generally extends the grace of the covenant. This does not happen because the children are justified in the parents, but because they, too, were personally reckoned in Christ.

12. On what grounds do we accept this theory of a covenant of works?

a)   On the general ground that, if all the data are present, it is allowable for us to connect them with each other and to give a suitable name to the connection so constructed. This is the case here. Here is a free covenant alongside the natural relationship. Although it is true that one cannot speak of a formal enacting of a covenant, God had only had to announce the covenant and that Adam was perfect before God guaranteed of itself that He accepted it.

b)   All, whatever theory they may follow in this matter, admit that the right to reward, and certainly such a glorious reward, did not proceed from the natural relationship of Adam to God and, thus, had to have another foundation. However, as soon as one must agree that there was something positive, a special condescension of God, in these matters, he also accepts the covenant of works in principle, although one may still take exception to the designation.

c)   The covenant of grace is the implementation of the covenant of works in the surety for us. That the former possesses the marks of a covenant is not subject to any doubt. From this it follows that the latter must also have been a covenant. In fact, Scripture repeatedly sets the old and new covenants in opposition with each other (cf., e.g., Heb 8:8). To be sure, in such places the opposition is not directly between the covenant in Christ and that in Adam but between the new dispensation of the covenant of grace and the old. However, one must bear in mind that the old dispensation of the covenant of grace bore a legal character for Israel as a nation and, therefore, in its external form once more kept the covenant of works in view, although the core of what God established with Israel was of course the continuation of the Abrahamic revelation of the covenant of grace.

d)   In Hosea 6:7, the translation “they have broken the covenant like Adam” seems to deserve preference, despite every objection.

e)   The parallel that is drawn in Romans 5:12–21 between Adam and Christ, in relation to the doctrine of justification developed elsewhere by Paul, cannot be explained other than by the theory of the covenant of works. In justification, this is what was essential for Paul: that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us without our personally contributing something to its acquisition. This applied to Adam immediately gives all the relationships of the covenant of works.

f)   All other theories are subject to such objections that the federal theory is to be preferred over them.

13. To whom does the theory of mediate imputation owe its origin, and what does it intend?

It was constructed by the Saumurian theologians Amyraut, Cappel, and Laplace (Placeus). For the doctrine of election, it has been pointed out how this Saumurian conception is most likely closely connected with the system of conditional satisfaction. If I posit that Christ (also in God’s purpose) has made satisfaction for you conditionally, on the condition of your believing, then I posit a condition or act in man as the basis of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, as the foundation of the state. Likewise, the doctrine of mediate imputation asserts that Adam’s sin is only imputed to us because we possess with him the same depravity. The Formula of the Helvetic Consensus expressed itself against this conception decisively and unambiguously. The theory was adopted by the younger Vitringa, Venema, Stapfer, and, so it seems, by Edwards. The New-school theory is associated with it.

14. What must be observed against this theory?

a)   That it is completely untenable and explains nothing. One cannot “mediate” a thing by its own consequences. Original pollution already proceeds from Adam’s sin, and yet [on this view] it will also provide the basis that we are guilty for the sin of Adam. Plainly stated, one must still end up with immediate imputation.

b)   It leaves the transmission to us of Adam’s corruption as an unexplained and inexplicable fact, since it does not want to view this corruption as punishment.

c)   It can maintain the parallels with Christ in Romans 5 only by a non-Reformed and unbiblical conception of the covenant of grace.

d)   According to it, a mediate imputation must take place of all the sins of the preceding generations to the following generations, where these are passed down to descendants.

e)   If inherent corruption is already present in the descendants of Adam, and if one already thinks he is able to use that as a legal ground for explaining something else, then one no longer needs mediate imputation. In other words, the theory reasons in a circle.

15. What has to be observed concerning the realistic or Augustinian theory?

a)   That it is a very old theory that goes back to Augustine and, concerning its basic principles, even further in history. Up until the elaboration of the doctrine of the covenant by Cloppenburg and Cocceius, it was the orthodox theory with which the Reformers also agreed (with the exception of Zwingli). It does not follow from this, though, that with further knowledge of covenant theory they would have rejected it. This cannot be assumed, because these same Reformers remained creationists. The situation is simply that they had not arrived at a clear insight into the legal ground of the propagation of the sinfulness of the human race. Although God creates souls, the rational quality of these souls follows the propagation of nature. Here, the ethical still follows the physical; and although one continued to be convinced that this could not be unjust, one was still unable to provide a ground for this anomaly. When, later, the doctrine of covenant was applied to the original situation of man, this provided a natural explanation for this fact and was accepted gratefully by Reformed theology. It would therefore be ill-advised if we wished to go back to the Augustinian theory because of its antiquity. One might wish the same with regard to the covenant of grace, for this doctrine also is not so clearly developed by the old theologians as it was by those who were later.

b)   That this theory, when it is explained, must amount to traducianism. If God creates souls, then it amounts to Materialism to maintain that these created souls in their moral quality now must be determined by a physical law of the propagation of the body. That our body was in Adam could still not be the legal ground why God counts us guilty with Adam. Matter or even organic life cannot rule the moral state in this way. Thus, if we wish to accept this theory, we must also become traducianists and accept that our souls are propagated from the souls of our ancestors, and so all souls go back to Adam, from his soul.

c)   Even this, however, is not sufficient. If we posit that in a mysterious way all souls came from his, we do not yet have the legal ground of our condemnation. It is true that we have now made progress, in that we are no longer faced with a merely physical law of bodily reproduction. We are now faced with a higher—a metaphysical—relationship, by virtue of which soul is connected to soul and soul derives from soul, its nature with its existence. But this, too, is not a legal ground. In the legal sphere, the metaphysical cannot even so rule over the ethical. We cannot base the fact that we fall with Adam and are abandoned to perdition on God’s establishment of the metaphysical law of traducianism rather than some other way. In God’s way of acting, every law of reproduction is determined by strictly judicial considerations. We have to maintain this. And because this is so, we cannot remain content with a mysterious traducianism but have to move on to the terrain of Realism.

d)   When we arrive there, we encounter new difficulties. The question arises how we are to think about this realistic existence of our souls in Adam’s soul. Every conception one would give of that must appear, upon closer examination to be based on a materialistic course of thought. In general, two conceptions are possible:

1.   The soul of humanity was generic substance, only individualized in Adam. This point of individualization sinned for the entire substance. One must then assume, however, that this individual point controlled the entire generic substance, that it contained the whole in itself. This leads to the divisibility of souls whereby we end up with Materialism. Or one will have to accept that this point of individualization, though not controlling the entire generic substance, is nonetheless used by God to allow it to decide for the entire substance. With that, the idea of the covenant, which one wishes to exclude, enters again through the back door.

2.   The second possible conception would speak of souls being included in the soul of Adam (compare what was quoted above from Shedd and the image of the different levels in a soul). This again is clearly materialistic; and, moreover, such a mode of being in Adam is not an identity on which ethical solidarity could be based. Thus Realism also does not help us over this difficulty.

e)   The theory of the realistic mode of being in Adam leaves entirely unexplained how Adam’s sin can be imputed to us and the sins of all our other ancestors cannot. One might say that the ground of the imputation is in the mode of being in another. If this is the case, then all being in another would have to include imputation. If one then replies that the entire human race was only present in Adam, this is no solution to the difficulty. Complete or partial existing in another does not make the slightest difference, as long as one derives the legal ground from being in another. That there were in Adam 1,400 million people, and in Seth and Cain each only half of these 1,400 million people, makes no difference in the matter. Those who were in Seth and Cain were entirely in them. And also saying that only in Adam, with his decision, could the human race result in two lines and that later this possibility never existed again, does not provide the desired explanation. For, according to the Augustinian concept (= scriptural concept), the imputability of sin in no respect depends on the possibility that a sinner can choose either line. Our responsibility is not limited by our impotence. That I already have become impotent in Adam does not offer the least ground why the aggravation of original sin by actual sin in my grandfather would not be imputed to me, for I was also naturally existing in him. On this point, covenant theory does provide an explanation and is therefore to be preferred above the Augustinian as the best hypothesis for explaining all the facts.

f)   The greatest difficulty for this theory is in the areas of Christology and soteriology. If the legal ground of our guilty standing before God is because of our really being in Adam, then this legal ground must extend to Christ. This can have a twofold consequence. One can either place the human nature of Christ that is born from Mary in the status of guilt, not only as he is surety but also for itself. Or, going still further, one can make that human nature share in the pollution that is passed over from Adam to his posterity. In both cases, the human nature of Christ must pay for itself; in the latter case, it cannot even pay for itself. A sacrifice that has to first be justified and purified is not the sacrifice pleasing to God that can bear sin and can obtain eternal life.

16. How can one show that there was a specific promise in the covenant of works?

a)   From the analogy of Scripture. The angels who did not fall were confirmed in their state. Believers cannot fall away from the state of grace. Accordingly, we must assume that, if Adam had not fallen, the human race would have become immutably good and immortal in the strictest sense of the word.

b)   Even after the covenant of works is broken, perfect keeping of the law is presented as a hypothetical means for obtaining life, a means that must work infallibly. “The man who does these things will live by them” (Lev 18:5). Now, if keeping of the law (if that were possible in the fallen state) would lead to the gift of life, then obedience in the situation before the fall must have had even more a promise of life.

c)   The same follows from the parallel between what Adam should have done and what Christ has done. The latter has brought eternal life and immortality to light (2 Tim 1:10). Adam, too, would have done this if he had not succumbed in his probation.

d)   Although man had no right to this promise of eternal life, still there is something in the nature of God that disposes Him to this justice-inflecting kindness and takes man up into a fixed and unbreakable covenant where he cannot again fall away. This is also one of the characteristics of the concept of covenant, that there is the most intimate solidarity between the parties making the covenant. In the covenant of works, this perfect solidarity by which man would be taken up into the favor of God, incapable of being lost, is presented as the ideal. That would have been the covenant of works in its highest and most glorious unfolding if it would have become established as a covenant that could not be undone, on which Satan would no longer have an effect. The covenant of grace is distinguished from the covenant of works insofar as this absolute unity is not its end but its starting point. In Christ that unity is here, given from the beginning. But it is in view in both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

17. With what punishment was breaking the covenant threatened?

It consisted, according to Genesis 2:17, in “dying the death.” Here death has to be taken in its broadest sense. One distinguishes temporal (bodily)/spiritual/eternal death. The general concept of death includes two elements:

a)   Being cut off from the source of life.

b)   Being abandoned to a process of dissolution.

The source of life for man as bearer of the image of God is God. “Life,” however, can be understood in a twofold sense, in a natural and in a spiritual sense. In the natural sense, death only extends as far as the body and then only for a time, for the body of the spiritually dead must also be resurrected in natural immortality. Death in the spiritual sense extends to include both soul and body.

One may still ask whether a separate place may be assigned to eternal death. In principle, it is nothing other than the outworking of spiritual death, just as eternal life, in principle, already begins here for believers. Yet it has its distinctiveness in that it is a process in which body and soul will be inseparably united. An eternal death for the body in this dispensation is still a contradictio in adjecto [contradiction in the adjective]. The body must first be bound to the soul with the bonds of eternal destiny before death can reveal its full power therein.

Death, as spiritual and bodily death, made its entrance immediately after the first transgression of Adam. By his fall, Adam cut himself off, in a way incomprehensible to us, from the supply of life by the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit departed from him. Death was the natural result of this.

18. Under what twofold aspect must we consider Adam?

He was at the same time a private person and persona publica [a public person]. In the latter respect, he represented all persons who would be born from him as human persons in the way of natural generation.

One should note the following considerations:

a)   Guilt and imputation are conceptions that are not applicable to an impersonal nature, but only to persons. The law does not reckon with a nature but with persons. Conversely, the federal concept of representation is precisely a concept that is entirely personal. Accordingly, both fit together.

b)   One could ask whether such a theory of imputation does not require as its reverse side that all who are counted in Adam should be born immediately from Adam. If according to us, the organic connection of humanity in all its branches is not the ground but only the result and reflection of the legal relation in which it stands before God, how is it then that the latter is so simple, the former so complex? To this objection it must be answered that the further development of humanity from Adam is not ruled exclusively by the principles of the covenant of works, but that it finds its place much more under the dispensation of the covenant of grace. Just because God had elected those persons, had elected persons from such and such nations, and had ordained for the earthly life of His elect such and such an environment—just because of that, the stream of humanity had to flow through that bed, as has occurred since Adam’s fall. Thus the history of humanity does not reflect exclusively the simple relation of representation in Adam; it reflects much more complex relationships.

19. Was it possible that Adam would have fallen before the temptation by Satan and at a different point than the probation command?

In the abstract, that possibility did not exist. God knew that with the probation command Adam would be forced to a choice pointedly by the temptation of Satan. It is another question, however, whether that possibility did not exist for Adam. There is no reason to assume that God prevented him from sinning earlier by means of a special grace. And as long as we cannot explain the mystery of the fall, as long as we must confess that the temptation is the occasional cause but not the causa sufficiens (“sufficient cause”), we cannot show or affirm that, considered subjectively, an earlier fall for Adam would be impossible. It is, however, useless to argue at length about these questions. Some theologians say that Adam could only sin representatively at this one point.

20. How must one view the manner in which the covenant of works was revealed to Adam?

As we have seen, in the covenant of works there were two elements, one natural and one positive. Now since Adam was perfect in every respect, along with his natural relationship to God belonged a completely clear awareness of this relationship. He knew from nature, by innate knowledge, what God could demand of him—that he stood, as bearer of the image of God, under the moral opposition between good and evil, that upon breaking this natural relationship punishment would follow. All this and still more: He was assured of the favor of God and of life, provided that he persevered in the good. All of this Adam could know naturally. Fallen man still knows the same by nature.

It was otherwise with the actual stipulations of the covenant. These must have been communicated by God, at least in their general features, to the head of the covenant, although Scripture does not describe this explicitly. We know that the probation command was communicated (Gen 2:17). Likewise, it seems to follow from Genesis 3:22 that man had a grasp of the promise of life. Concerning the mystery of the propagation of his race, he will not have been wrongly ignorant. And concerning the deeper significance of this natural law, the Lord will surely have given him further instruction, so that he broke the covenant of works clearly aware of and certainly understanding his representative position.

21. What should be observed concerning the abiding force of the covenant of works?

a)   Insofar as the covenant of works was a concrete application of the natural legal relation that obtains between God and man, man can never be released from it. Even where Christ fulfills the law for us, we do not become lawless creatures by this fulfillment of the law. Natural law remains in force as the rule of life for the redeemed elect. What Christ does frees us, not from the natural law under which all personal creatures as such must stand, but from the federal form of the law in which this law functioned as the means ordained by God for obtaining eternal life. By this distinction, all antinomianism is excluded.

b)   Insofar as the covenant of works went beyond the natural relationship between God and man, it has passed away for those who are under the covenant of grace. Still here, too, one should distinguish carefully:

1.   It has not passed away absolutely, as if they would attain to eternal life by another way than that of probation and representation. But they no longer come to that life by a probation and a representation in their natural head, Adam. Their probation and representation has now taken place, according to God’s dispensation of grace, in the supernatural head, Christ. Also, this probation is no longer an uncertain one that can have two different outcomes. Thus, if one considers believers in their head, they are saved under the same general system. If one considers them in their relation to Adam, they are saved by grace, for the juridical transfer from the one head to the other (from Adam to Christ) is not something that can in any way be derived from the covenant of works.

2.   The consequences of the covenant of works for believers do not pass away at once. God’s eternal judgment of damnation, under which they lie because of Adam’s fall, is testified to in their conscience by the law of nature and Scripture until the hour of justification dawns and the judgment of acquittal, pronounced in Christ, is proclaimed in the same forum of the conscience. Neither can one say that what believers feel before their justification is only the general disfavor of God toward sin as breaking the law of nature, so that their sense of guilt would not be essentially different if anyone, entirely apart from the covenant of works, would have incurred the guilt for himself. This is not the case. All who are led to [recognize] their guilt know themselves to be guilty because of a federal sin. The covenant of works enters into the sense of guilt in an awakened soul, just as the awareness of satisfaction in the covenant head, Christ, becomes food for every soul that hungers and thirsts for personal righteousness. Even natural death and the necessity of the resurrection of the flesh may be viewed as consequences of, though not punishments for, Adam’s breaking of the covenant. This is what the older [theologians] understood with their doctrine of the step-wise abrogation of the covenant of works.

c)   The nonelect natural man is also still under the covenant of works, if one takes the covenant of works only in its broadest sense. He is not under it in the sense that his life here on earth would still be a probation, for he is put to the test and succumbed in Adam. He is one fallen, not one who is tested. He is under it insofar as his punishable culpability is at its root connected with Adam’s breaking of the covenant, whether he would acknowledge it or not. By the breaking of the covenant of works, he did not revert to his natural relationship.

Emphasis must be placed on this in yet another respect. By the covenant of works, the idea of covenant is introduced into humanity, and fellowship with God incapable of being lost and life flowing from that fellowship presented as the ideal. This ideal is not subsequently removed. God does not lower His demand and does not hypothetically waive His promise. He does not say, “Provided that, and as long as, you keep the law, you have life,” but He still incites even the guilty man by keeping [before him] that lost ideal, eternal life. Thus the covenant idea continues at work in man’s memory of a state that will be elevated above probation and change. Later, we will see that this thought is of importance for an appreciation of the Mosaic law. It stands in a certain relation to the covenant of works, and just for that reason can become a tutor [leading] to Christ, in whom the latter is realized with full glory.

22. What have theologians taught concerning the sacraments of the covenant of works?

Many speak of two sacraments, namely of paradise and of the tree of life (Braun, Cocceius). One arrives at this view in the following manner. Revelation 2:7 speaks of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God. By that, Christ is meant. Apparently, therefore, the tree of life in the earthly paradise after the fall was a symbol of the power of life that is in Christ, and before the fall a sign that the power of life for man was not to be sought in himself but outside himself in God. Because, moreover, this tree is in the midst of the heavenly courtyard, it therefore has a central meaning and summarizes, as it were, all the glory and enjoyment of heaven. It will, accordingly, have formed the center point of paradise on earth, from which it follows directly that paradise itself was an image of heaven. To this attaches the widely shared conception that man, if he would have remained unfallen, would have enjoyed the state of bliss not on earth but in heaven. The sacrament thus becomes an image and seal of higher spiritual good.

Others speak of two sacraments, namely, both trees from the account of paradise (Maestricht). By the tree of knowledge of good and evil the threat was sealed; by the other tree, the promise.

Still others designate three or four sacraments, by adding to the three mentioned above the Sabbath as a seal of heavenly rest.

23. What must be observed with respect to this idea?

a)   It is essential to the concept of a sacrament that the sealed sign is administered or enjoyed. Since there is no proof that man in the state of rectitude has eaten from the tree of life, and enjoying the other tree is excluded by the nature of the case, neither of the two can be called sacraments in the strict sense.

b)   Further, it belongs to the concept of a sacrament that the thing signified and the sign shall not be identical, but sharply distinguished. For the Sabbath, such a distinction is difficult to maintain, for although it is in a certain sense the image of higher rest and heavenly bliss, it was at the same time a foretaste of that rest and insofar the signified thing itself.

c)   That a sacrament would seal a threat is against all analogy. Even if one does not wish to maintain strictly that sacraments have to be means of grace, they will still have to be signs of God’s covenantal favor in the widest sense. Therefore the tree of knowledge of good and evil, too, cannot pass for a sacrament.

d)   One can certainly continue speaking of signs of the promised bliss. It is most obvious, then, to think of the tree of life and of paradise. The significance of the tree of life is sufficiently indicated in what has been said above.

24. From what does the tree of knowledge of good and evil derive its name?

The reason for that is not stated clearly. One could think of the following:

a)   Because by this tree it would be made known and brought to light whether man would fall into the state of evil or would be confirmed in the state of immutable goodness.

b)   Because by this tree man, who for the present knew evil only as an idea, could be led to the practical knowledge of evil. Or also because he, remaining unfallen, would still, by means of temptation overcome, gain clearer insight into the essence of evil as transgression of God’s law and disregard of His sovereign power, and likewise would attain the highest knowledge of immutable moral goodness.

c)   Because by this tree the essence of evil was, as it were, objectified for Adam. This essence of evil came most clearly to the fore when it was rid of all incidentals, harmful consequences, etc. In the usual transgression of law, the seed of evil is always more or less covered over with other things. If God had commanded Adam to treat the animals well and had made this the point of probation, then in the ill-treatment of the animals, which was in opposition to it, evil would have revealed itself as cruelty to the animals and not so directly as transgression against God. One therefore can say that the form of the probation command in itself already communicated a certain knowledge of evil, and, in contrast, of good.

25. What is the rationale for the probation command?

That God made a morally neutral thing the point of decision appears, as was just noted, to have had the purpose of ridding sin of all incidental features and to lay it bare at its core. If man sinned against this command, then it could be for no other reason than that he choose evil as evil and rejected good as good. Because God’s will is for us the binding power, and love toward God should permeate all our moral relationships, a command that depended solely on God’s will was extremely well suited to place man before the pointed choice: only because of God’s will, or not.

Now, however, it has been proposed that only by such a probation command did the possibility exist for Adam to do something because of God’s will. This is not the case. By the probation command, the possibility was given that it would come to light how Adam could also do good only because of God’s will. Even considered apart from the probation command, Adam was obligated not do anything because of his own will, and he did nothing only because his inclination urged him to do it. In everything, the deepest motivation had to be love to God, and it was in fact so as long as Adam remained unfallen. Thus if one maintains that Adam could do something on account of God’s will only through the probation command and the choice before which it placed him, then one has accepted in principle the Pelagian theory of a state of innocence in which man has inclinations that lead to doing good but in which the good as a moral power is still not yet awakened in him. Thus one must reject this view. One ought to also hold, despite all difficulties, that the abstract and in itself neutral command, “You shall not eat of it,” resonated in Adam and that he, being perfectly holy, felt an inclination and natural tendency of the soul to obey the command. So for Adam, the choice was not between his inclination to eat the fruit and an abstract command that aroused no resonance in him but between two inclinations: the one toward the fruit, the other toward keeping God’s command. The question, then, was which of those two he would follow. And when he followed the former, then this could only reside in the fact that the other inclination out of love for God to fulfill His command had receded or was weakened.

With this, we stand before the mystery of sin and of its first appearance. In Adam’s disposition toward God Himself lies the mysterious ground of the origin of sin. In an inexplicable way, that inclination ceased, reversed. In it itself lay the beginning point of sin. The rationale for the probation command is thus to be sought in the fact that it only isolated Adam’s holy disposition to fulfill God’s will entirely from other considerations and influences in order then in a mysterious way to place before it the occasion for decision. It does not appear that the sensual inclination to eat the fruit came into conflict with the initial spiritual inclination. The way in which Satan approached Eve is not along the line of sensual inclination. He first arouses unbelief, distrust, desire for illicit knowledge, then achieves the latter with her consideration of the fruit in this respect with a view to the act of eating. From all this it is apparent what little logical warrant one has in saying that Adam and Eve could not fall other than in this way. We know absolutely nothing about how they are now fallen and could fall. How then should we presume to make a judgment about whether or not they could have fallen in another way?

26. What significance in the account of the fall does the temptation of Satan have?

a)   It cannot serve to explain the origin of sin rationally. To tempt is not to produce sin; usually it is the arousing of a sinful inclination already present in the heart so that it would express itself and result in action. That is not the case with Adam. A nonsinful inclination can be aroused—for example, the desire for more knowledge—but this arousal does not explain how it became sinful.

b)   It shows us that the first origin of sin is to be sought in a higher world than that of man. However, it is not true that due to this, as it is often said, the problem of the first origin of sin is shifted back out of the world of man into the world of angels. We will have to say that by this temptation a second problem is posed along with the first. We cannot understand: (1) how temptation can gain a hold on a holy man. (2) how a holy angel can fall without temptation.

c)   From the fact that the fallen angels do not again receive grace, while fallen man remains redeemable, the conclusion has naturally been drawn that sin originating from temptation can be remedied. On the contrary, sin that had no starting point outside the sinner cannot. This conclusion is obvious. It is not possible, however, to show in detail how this being and not being savable are related to the different origins of sin.

27. From what does it appear that the serpent was not a mere animal but the instrument of a higher being?

a)   From the entire course of the temptation. What the serpent says and does is beyond the scope of an irrational animal.

b)   The principle that the lower nature is only an image of the higher leads us to discover in the serpent an image of sin. Two traits especially make it such an image.

1.   The trait of temptation, for the serpent coils and creeps and attacks in secret.

2.   The trait of poisoning, for the serpent’s venom, when it is mixed with blood, can no longer be stopped in its action (Gen 3:1).

c)   In the New Testament it is said, directly and indirectly, that it was Satan who tempted our first parents by means of a serpent (Rev 12:9; 20:2; Rom 16:20; John 8:44).

d)   That Satan spoke by means of a serpent was therefore so that sin would reveal itself in a fitting form. Adam and Eve, who knew the character of the serpent, had to have considered that.

28. How did it happen that not only Adam but Eve also fell, and that Satan first tempted Eve?

For explaining the latter fact, one has thought of the character of the woman as more receptive. This could be true, provided that care is taken not to understand this receptivity in an ethical sense, as a greater susceptibility to evil. Eve was just as holy as Adam. That not only Adam but both our first parents sinned will also be connected to the fact that they sinned not as private persons but as representing the entire human race that would issue from them. Adam alone was not the origin of the human race. Nevertheless, the sin and covenant-breaking of Adam is always spoken of, and Adam is placed in contrast with Christ, because as man he represents the woman judicially.

29. In what is the material principle of Eve’s or Adam’s first sin to be sought?

a)   This matter has been judged very differently. In general, we can anticipate from the outset that what generally constitutes the essence of sin will also have constituted the seed in this first sin. Our consideration of the probation command given above leads directly to this conclusion.

b)   We find the essence of sin in general to be this: that man (1) divorces himself and his relationships from God; (2) places them as a separate center in opposition to God; (3) makes them act against God. We will have to discover all three of these traits in the first sin. We find, in fact, that Satan incites Eve to regard God’s prohibition as a limitation of human rights and freedoms. In his question he presents it as worse than it is and asks whether God has also forbidden eating of every tree. Eve does deny that this prohibition was general, but she takes up the representation of the evil One insofar as she, in turn, presents the prohibition more strictly than it was given (“nor touch it”), speaks about it with a note of an aggrieved sense of justice, and ascribes to God the obligation above all to have to care for man’s well-being (“in order that you do not die”). One sees here how all three elements mentioned above are already potentially present. The two spheres of divine justice and human justice are already separated. They are no longer concentric. This happened as soon as Eve began to reflect on the relationship there was between her own rights and freedoms and the prohibition of God. This is temptation: to shift the center of our lives from God to a point outside God; and this, therefore, is already the actual fall.

c)   This fall equally underlies all the different forms in which sin immediately appears outwardly. It is, therefore, a hopeless task to say that this or that sin has been the first. At the most, one can say that this or that form of sin has manifested itself first. And so we find:

1.   The manifestation of this fall is in the consciousness; there man recognizes himself as no longer living from God and for God. This is the sin of unbelief. Man no longer feels solidarity with God. He has the sense that God wishes to deceive him and therefore considers His words to be untruth.

2.   The manifestation of the fall is in the alignment of the will of man. He no longer makes himself subject to God but seeks to be like God, above all not less than God.

3.   The manifestation is in the emotional life of man. That he looks with lust and desire at the fruit that was forbidden by God shows how his emotion, too, functions in a wrong way, that it is no longer an enjoying of things in God but a godless losing of himself in things outside God.

d)   Although all these were only manifestations of sin and not the real root itself, they still belong to the fullness of the first sin. Because it is of the essence of sin that it does not remain hidden but acts itself out, in this respect the first sin, too, had to be typical. The relation that exists between sinful disposition, sinful thoughts, the summoning up of the will, and sinful action is not external but organic. That it turns into action reveals just how deeply sin has taken hold. It is, therefore, useless speculation to ask what would have happened if Adam and Eve had not proceeded to the sinful act. Humanly speaking, the act could not have remained in abeyance.

e)   The difficulty that remains in all this is here: We can certainly understand how inciting motives from the outside can be at work on man, provided that first from within, in an immediate way, the disposition is produced to which those motives are directed. God acts in this manner in the re-creation of man. He also works from the outside through His word. That can be because He has first awakened life from within in a direct manner. But Satan could not do that. He cannot reorder the inner being of man, and if he had been able to, then man could hardly be considered responsible for it. From this follows the mysteriousness of this conjoining process. Just as it is, it seems to be nothing but an enticing to outward expression of a sinful principle that was present already from within. Yet it is more. What we can understand is the working of sin from the inside out. To that precedes the penetration of sin from the outside to the inside. This precedence, this wonder, we do not understand. With us, the disposition determines the deed, both in the natural state and in regeneration; with Adam, the deed determined the disposition.

f)   One may not say that Adam fell because the grace of God left him, but through his fall, one must say, Adam fell in an incomprehensible way from the grace of God.

30. What were the consequences of Adam’s first sin for himself?

a)   Coinciding immediately with the first sin, and therefore not to be called a consequence in the strict sense, was the total corruption of human nature—thus, that there was now nothing more in it that was in accord with the demand of God’s law.

b)   Related most closely to this was the loss of the gift of fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit. This is just the other side of what is noted in a). Both can be summarized in the proposition that man by his first sin lost the image of God—that is, insofar as it was losable.

c)   This radical change in man took place not only in the reality of his condition, but it also was reflected immediately in his consciousness. Hence the accusing conscience, the fear of God, the sense of shame.

d)   From His side, God also showed by actions how the condition of man and the relationship to Him was changed. Because paradise and the tree of life had been images and seals of the blessings promised in the covenant of works, man must be deprived of the sight of them. Hence banishment from paradise, the cherubim with the burning blade of a sword, and the declaration that “he may not reach out his hand and take of the tree of life.”

e)   The relationship of guilt is discussed above.

31. With what designation do theologians indicate what we in Dutch call erfzonde [“hereditary sin”]?

For that they use the term peccatum originale (English, “original sin”).

32. Why is this terminology more accurate than the one used in Dutch?

Because it comports better with everything considered to be hereditary sin. If one distinguishes two things, (a) the guilt imputed to us for Adam’s first sin, and (b) the corruption inherent in us as punishment for this imputed guilt, then one sees immediately that, strictly speaking, only the latter is inherited. The former is not inherited but is imputed to us. It is transmitted from Adam to us in the tribunal of God, but in an immediate way, not by heredity. Peccatum originale [original sin] expresses that better than hereditary sin [Dutch erfzonde].

33. How then is the expression peccatum originale [original sin] to be understood?

a)   Sin is called peccatum originale insofar as in its origin it stems from the root of the human race.

b)   Insofar as it has originated in us, not, according to the Pelagian conception, by imitation, but is original in us. We bring it with us inherently.

c)   Insofar as it is the origin of all other sin, namely actual sinning. Although the terminology was not consciously calculated by someone to express all these ideas, still it is, once in use, an excellent instrument to summarize all this in just a couple of words.

34. In what does this original sin consist insofar as it is inherited (= peccatum inhaerens = hereditary pollution; in distinction from peccatum imputatum = hereditary guilt)?

It consists of two parts:

a)   The absence of the original righteousness. This is an inherited deficiency, a privation, the lack of something that should be there. Man is not only obliged to the bearing of punishment when he sins, because this sin is positively against God, but also because through this sin God is denied the obedience that is due Him. As was seen above, Roman Catholics make this the only element in inherited original sin.

b)   The presence of positive evil that has entered in place of positive good.

35. What must be observed concerning this second, positive element of inherent original sin?

a)   That it is sin essentially and in the proper sense of the word. In opposition to all who go along with us only halfway and here want to speak of sin in the figurative sense (the Greek fathers, the Remonstrants), one has only to pose the question whether personal guilt adheres to it. The answer to that decides everything. Whoever denies it does not hold to the biblical doctrine of inherent corruption.

b)   That, nevertheless, it is not a substance that is infused into the human soul, nor a change of substance in the metaphysical sense of this word. This was the error of the Manicheans and of Flacius Illyricus at the time of the Reformation. By making sin a substance, one outstrips one’s self in zeal to maintain it as a reality. Sin as substance ceases to be sin. It is inseparable from the concept of sin in that it is within the sphere of quality and not of substance.

c)   In his polemic against the Manicheans, Augustine introduced a philosophical element into the concept of sin that subsequently has never disappeared from it. He taught not only that sin is not a substance, but further that it is deprivation of being, that is, a negation. He used here the terminology of the Neoplatonists and of Origen. This view in its turn, however, is related to the pantheistic theory that sin is limitation. Therefore, it is better to exclude this philosophical element from the concept of sin. Augustine wanted to point out that sin was not necessary and was not caused by God, and therefore he thought he had to make it negative. With him, we believe both, but deem it unnecessary to make this philosophical consideration the foundation of this belief.

1.   It shows only that God need not be the cause of sin, but it does not prove that He is not the cause. There we also stand. We reject with indignation the proposition that God has in any way caused sin, but we cannot make it clear logically that He has nothing to do with the origin of sin. We recognize a mystery here.

2.   It seems to us dangerous for the right view of sin to describe it as negative. It is a positive power in life.

3.   Orthodox theology of later times has dropped this philosophical element in the teaching of Augustine, where it has insisted that sin should not be viewed as mera privatio (“mere deprivation”), but as actuosa privatio (“active privation”).

d)   Thus sin is not a substance, but it is also not mere privation. Rather, it should be called a habitus, a disposition, that is inherent in the substance and can be changed without essential change of the latter. Furthermore, it is a habitus [disposition] that forms an antithesis with what is opposed to it, from which the substance of the soul cannot escape. As it belongs to the nature of matter to possess extension, so it belongs to the nature of the substance of the human soul to possess a moral disposition, good or evil.

e)   Because the sinful habitus is inherent in the soul as a whole, it extends to every capacity of the soul, to the entire life of the soul, and leaves nothing untouched. The corruption of sin resides not only in the lower capacities, as if the higher remain sound, but in both lower and higher. Everything is alienated from God and therefore the object of his displeasure. One calls this “total depravity.” The meaning of this term is to be derived from the description we gave of the essence and the form of sin. If the distinguishing characteristic of sin is in relation to God, so total depravity will also have to be thought of in relation to God. By it is not meant:

1.   That everyone is as bad as he can be or become. Although alienated from God and hostile toward God, in this hostility man can still have different grades of intensity.

2.   Nor does it mean that the sinner carries about no knowledge of the will of God in his conscience. The conscience is an action of the moral consciousness of man. Even this moral consciousness is affected by sin, but since man has remained a rational being, the recognition of this fact can never disappear entirely from his consciousness. The conscience is the recognition of it. That it has remained, however, does not in the least prove that there is any good toward God in him. It is something cognitive. The conscience does operate on the will and on the emotions, but it does so through selfish motives.

3.   Nor thereby is it meant that the one man cannot be more selfish than the other. All are sinful and selfish toward God, but within this circle of selfishness, in which the natural man moves, there are many concentric circles. A sinner, despite his selfishness toward God, can have a generous heart for his surroundings. Thus, while the one person includes much within himself in order to set it with himself against God, the other remains in almost complete isolation toward both God and world. There is thus a justitia civilis [civil righteousness], although at the same time for God everything that belongs to it is sin.

4.   Sin has different forms in which it can manifest itself. No one ever has displayed all these forms in himself. The adjective “total” in the expression “total depravity” does not have in view that all possible depravity would be present in man.

Total depravity, on the other hand, does mean that by nature no love for God is present as the motivating principle of our life: that it does not dwell in us as a disposition and therefore never determines our deeds, thoughts, and words; and, conversely, that in our entire life there is an undertow of hostility toward God that only needs an external stimulus to develop into conscious opposition toward the Lord. There is no spiritual good in us.

f)   Considered from another side, this inherent depravity is “inability for spiritual good.” If man is sinful in everything and nothing but sinful, then from that it already follows that the sinner does no good. In this sense, inability is the impossibility of doing spiritual good. Inability, however, is also understood in another sense, namely as the impossibility of reversing the direction of one’s own will, so that from being evil it would become good. In this second sense, too, man is incapable.

36. What is meant by the distinction between natural and moral inability, and why should it be rejected?

Many wish to deny the natural inability of man and maintain our moral inability. By that they mean that man, even in his fallen state, possesses the natural capacities that could be used in doing spiritual good. He has a rational understanding, a capacity of the will, etc. The basis for what is good is completely present in him. He is, however, morally incapable—that is, not able to put these natural capacities into operation in a right way. Against this distinction the following should be noted:

a)   The opposition between moral and natural is wrong and misleading. Moral and natural do not exclude each other. Something can be both at the same time. When it is said of man that he is incapable of spiritual good, this inability is natural because it is innate to his corrupt nature and with this corrupt nature is passed down from parent to child. Whoever then denies that the inability is natural appears to deny that it is natural in any sense of the word, while he only means what is explained above.

b)   One usually uses the opposition between natural and moral inability to emphasize man’s responsibility. Because both adjectives, “natural” and “moral,” belong with the word “inability,” the appearance arises as if there are two degrees of inability, one less strong that is “moral” and one stronger called “natural.” In common usage, in a more or less Pelagian manner, one associates with the term “moral” an idea of variability that is not associated with the term “natural.” So the misconception arises that the inability of man for spiritual good is only a relative inability.

c)   The distinction conceives of the will far too much as an abstraction. It is true that the sinful and good habitus [disposition] of the will have in common this abstract character of the will that they are both dispositions of the will. By that is not meant, however, that this abstraction exists in itself, apart from its inherent determination. Only if that were the case would it have any meaning to say that man is incapable because he has an evil will but still not incapable by nature because he has a will. One senses that the possession of a will takes away nothing from its inability unless one conceives of this will in a Roman Catholic-supernaturalistic sense, undetermined by nature. Then its natural presence can be viewed as a lessening of inability. The entire distinction, therefore, belongs in the Roman Catholic system and not on Reformed terrain.

d)   The element of truth in it amounts to this: When it is said of man that he is spiritually incapable, then the idea appears to be present that he would want to change himself if only he could. This idea is completely wrong. In fallen man there is no spark present of this desire to change himself. Now the advocates of the distinction being discussed here say that man could do spiritual good, if only he wanted to. They stress that he is willingly evil. To place emphasis on that is far from unnecessary. Still, the idea is too much in vogue, as if spiritual inability is our fate and not our will, as if we groan under it but with the best will cannot escape it. This idea is prevalent especially in circles where one hides behind his inability and by appealing to it tries to avoid responsibility toward the gospel. Therefore, it must always be pointed out that inability and unwillingness are two sides of one and the same matter. We do not will what is good, and we cannot change our will. Still, it is not necessary, in order to put emphasis on this point, to adopt the distinction between natural and moral inability. One could just as well appeal to the continuing presence of the image of God in the broader sense. In it is already included that man has not lost his capacities of the will, intellect, and emotion.

e)   The proposition that man is naturally not incapable also seems to deny that his capacities of intellect, will, etc., are weakened by sin to the greatest extent. The reason man is and remains evil is not only that those capacities operate in a perverse direction. Even if this moral direction were changed for a time, if with that change a change of these capacities themselves did not also take place by which they received their old power and perfection again, man could still not do a single deed that counts as perfect for God. The clarity of the intellect, the power of the will, the tone of the emotions—all are damaged in sinful man. In that, too, his inability exists, and this is one of the reasons why, for example, the good deeds of God’s children here on earth are never perfect. So, even if one would accept the distinction between natural and moral, natural inability must still be maintained.

37. Does the spiritual inability of man consist of the loss of his free will, his liberum arbitrium?

This question should be answered in different ways. If by “free will” one means the spontaneity that the soul works from itself without compulsion, this characteristic is inseparably connected with the concept of will. An unfree, enslaved will, then, is a contradictio in adjecto, something that never has existed and never can exist.

If, however, by “free will” one means the abstract possibility that the will of man turns from good to evil or from evil to good, then this liberum arbitrium existed before the fall but no longer after the fall. This is also what theologians meant when they listed the loss of the liberum arbitrium as one of the consequences of sin. Man did possess the capacity to make evil from good, but not the capacity to make good again from evil. The latter, the bringing about of something good as well as the abolishing of something evil, is the exclusive prerogative of the omnipotence of God. And inasmuch as now, after his fall, man must always do evil contrary to the testimony of his conscience, and sin hinders the development and free movement of all his powers, one may speak in this sense, too, of a lack of freedom and bondage in which he exists as sinner.

38. How can you prove this teaching of the inability of man for doing spiritual good?

It is proven:

a)   From the fact that Scripture nowhere ascribes to fallen man any capacity to do good of himself.

b)   From the express declaration of Scripture that the opposite is the case. Compare John 15:4, 5; 6:44; Romans 8:7; 1 Corinthians 2:14.

c)   From the form in which Scripture presents to us the doctrine of original sin. In this connection two features especially must be noted. The natural condition of sinful man is portrayed as a condition of death and as a fleshly condition. The point of comparison in both of these images includes the utter inability for spiritual good. As little as a dead person can stir or lifeless flesh can achieve an expression of life, just so little can the natural man do what is good toward God.

d)   From the explanation of Scripture that man is not only negatively dead toward God and fleshly passive but also, moreover, that in this death lurks a principle of development and of hostility against God. Man, therefore, is not shackled in total inability by a single bond, but by two bonds.

e)   From the necessity that the favor and fellowship of God are indispensable for man if he will produce spiritual good. As long as the wrath of God rests on him, nothing in his life can prosper. The consciousness of the judgment under which he lies, without having yet reckoned with other things, cuts off every good deed at the root.

f)   From the necessity of the immediate working of grace by the Holy Spirit in regeneration. This is the other side of what was said under c). Everywhere the Holy Spirit is presented as the one who awakes life and the source of life. Nowhere in Scripture does the human soul appear as a self-changing subject, but always as an object that becomes changed from the outside by affecting grace. Hence there is spoken of a new birth, a new creation, a resurrection from the dead.

g)   From the experience of the children of God. None will assert that he is capable of doing what the law demands of him. The awareness of guilt of an awakened sinner also includes, among other things, the conviction that he is bound by sin and cannot save himself. This sense of helplessness is precisely the characteristic of true repentance. Inasmuch, then, as the latter is nothing other than a coming to be aware of the real condition of man, we can infer from it that this in fact is a condition of inability.

39. Which objections have been advanced against this doctrine of total inability?

a)   That it is incompatible with the moral responsibility of man. To this we respond with the following:

1.   Inability to do good is only incompatible with responsibility if this inability has a non-moral origin. For man this is not the case. He cannot, but that is because the direction of his will is wrong, going against God. It is not a natural capacity to will that is lacking in him, but the good moral quality of his capacity. This is what we found to be the kernel of truth in the distinction between natural and moral inability. Only we would also want to call this moral inability natural, inasmuch as it belongs to the nature of man to be moral and to be good.

2.   In human judicial proceedings, which are carried out in the name of God, responsibility is not limited by inability. No judge will maintain that the guilty person was always capable of desisting from the act for which he was condemned. Nevertheless, he pronounces the verdict on it. Still more than this, the judge will rightly seek the ground for his verdict in the relationship between character and deed. That is why it always counts as valid evidence when one seeks to show that there is no correspondence between the character of the accused and the deed with which he is charged.

b)   That it removes every impulse to act. However, it does so only with respect to doing acts of holiness. Hence it is presented more clearly in the New Testament than under the old covenant, when the economy was still a legal one. With respect to the activities of the soul directed toward receiving the benefits of the covenant of grace, there can be no thought of removing an impulse, simply because these activities do not come into consideration as spiritually good acts but as instrumental acts. When the demand of the covenant of grace for faith and repentance comes to someone, the meaning of it is not, “perform a spiritually good deed, then you will be saved,” but “acknowledge that your salvation is in Christ.” Of course, it therefore remains the case for faith and repentance that in them a principle of spiritual good is present, for we teach that they are impossible without regeneration. But in the appropriation of the benefits of the covenant of grace, they do not figure under this aspect. Moreover, even the faith by which one is justified, viewed materially, is still an expression of a soul stained with sin and unrighteousness, which for its cleansing, which faith itself imparts, is in need of the righteousness of Christ. The faith, by which we are justified, is itself not righteous before God.

c)   That it leads to postponing conversion. One says that it leads man to the thought, “I must wait on God’s time.” This, however, is by no means the case. If man lives with the consciousness of being able of his own power and on his own initiative to effect his conversion or even his regeneration, this could be for him a source of indifference and carelessness. It is capable of psychological proof that those actions that are in our own power result in no deeper movement in the life of our soul, while, on the contrary, the consciousness of inability and helpless passivity in important concerns can shake man in his deepest depths. So too here. Whoever preaches to man that he can change himself must expect that he will delay this easy change from one hour to the next. On the other hand, it can never have harmful consequences to tell man the full truth concerning his condition, provided that one but takes care that this inability itself is impressed on the conscience as guilt and responsibility.

40. From what can one determine extensively the scope of original sin?

a)   Scripture everywhere teaches that all flesh is sinful and has corrupted its way before God (Job 14:4; John 3:6; Rom 3:9ff.; 1 Kgs 8:46; Psa 143:2; Prov 20:9; Eccl 7:20; Gal 3:22; 1 John 1:8). If now every man, for whom this holds true, committed no actual sin (for example, newborn children), then that involves that they are guilty because of original sin.

b)   Sin reveals itself in man so early that there can be no thought of becoming sinful by imitating the example of others. Scripture teaches that this sin clings to us from the first moment of our existence (Psa 51:5). (One should note that in this psalm David does not cite indwelling corruption as an excuse but as an aggravating circumstance for his sin of adultery.) “By nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3; cf. Psa 58:3). That sin is nature means that it is given with our being human and follows the natural line of reproduction. Moreover, this text includes that this innate sin is under the wrath of God—thus not in the Zwinglian or Arminian sense of sickness or defect but fully doom-worthy sin.

c)   The consequences of sin are common. Temporal death extends to all, even to children who did not sin in the likeness of Adam’s sin. Where the consequence is present, the cause has to be present. Therefore, it was rightly seen by the Socinians and Remonstrants that, according to their system, corporal death could have no ethical meaning but must be a process of nature. Compare Romans 5:12–14. New School theology has seen itself compelled to return to this un-Christian and unscriptural position and to consider children before their use of reason to be on the same level with animals, although there are many who dare not take this position.

d)   Scripture everywhere teaches that every single person has need of redemption through Christ. Now this redemption is in the first place redemption from the guilt of sin and the power of sin. If one wishes to limit the scope of original sin, then at the same time one thereby limits the necessity of redemption through Christ. Children are baptized as a sign and seal that they are washed in Christ’s blood. Infant baptism, then, is a proof of the reality of original sin. To say that for children redemption is not deliverance from evil (but merely a means of preventing evil) is of no avail because it conflicts directly with the continuous significance of the means of grace. Compare John 3:3, 5, where the absolute necessity of regeneration for every person is taught (cf. Acts 17:30; Mark 16:16). If one does not believe in Christ, then one does not only then come under the wrath of God, but the wrath of God remains on such a person (John 3:36).

e)   If some places in Scripture seem to teach that sin is not universal to man, then one must consider three things in that regard.

1.   There is a justitia civilis [civil righteousness]. In civil matters, one can be free from intentional violation of the law without therefore being sinless before God.

2.   There is a covenantal righteousness within Israel. The one who, as much as is within him, fulfills all the ceremonial commandments of the Mosaic law, possesses this covenantal righteousness, which at the most has only a typical significance but is not the righteousness of faith itself, much less the righteousness of works. Many places in the Psalms should be understood in this way.

3.   There is an imputed righteousness that one possesses in Christ, which, instead of presupposing inherent righteousness, pointedly excludes it. One will be able to take all texts that speak of the righteousness and sinlessness of man back to one of these three groups.

f)   Experience shows that no sinless creature has lived. Even those who deny original sin in principle cannot deny this fact and try to give it as good an explanation as possible. Every other explanation than that of an inborn depravity that extends to all is, however, unsatisfactory. That not everyone recognizes himself as such is no proof of the contrary. Sin has a blinding power by which it tries to conceal its own presence, and, on the contrary, it is a fact that progress in grace goes along with a deeper insight into sin and the inability of the natural heart.

41. What answer should be given to the question how this inherent depravity of Adam is transmitted to us?

a)   Negatively, the answer to that question given by most Reformed theologians was that sin as something immaterial cannot lurk in the seed of the father—that therefore the propagation of sin must have another ground than the origin of the body from this seed.

b)   That neither can the propagation of sin be ascribed to the sinful quality of the actus [act] of generation. This was the opinion of Augustine. It is tied to a one-sided view of sin as concupiscentia carnis [the lust of the flesh]. That the act by which a man is born is entirely sinful still need not be the cause that the product of this seed also becomes sinful, for sin is a quality and not a substance; it is resident only in the soul of those who perform the act, and in their body only insofar as it is the organic instrument of this soul. In the deed as such, taken metaphysically or physically, there is nothing sinful.

c)   A third conception, likewise rejected by the leading dogmaticians, has the sinfulness of the soul taking its origin from its contact with the body. The soul would then be created without sin and first become sinful at the moment of union with the body. One then adds, however, to avoid materialistic (or, as well, traducianist) consequences, that it is not the corruption of the body or of the embryo in itself that causes sin—that it is much more the union of a soul, deprived of its original righteousness, with such a disharmonious body that does this. So, while sin in the strict sense cannot reside in the body in itself, it is possible, one thinks, that a certain condition of the body appropriated by the soul can become sin for it, because it lacks the positive holiness to suppress the passions of the flesh. And so sin would reside neither in the body in itself nor in the soul in itself but in nature, because it is just the nature of man that consists in the organic bond of body and soul. Peter Martyr Vermigli, Polanus, Benedictus Aretius, Hyperius, and Keckermann hold this view.

d)   The opinion of most is that:

1.   God imputes to the soul the guilt of Adam’s first sin by virtue of the covenant.

2.   After this has already occurred (in the judgment of God), before the actual existence of the soul, God appears, where it concerns the origination of souls, in the double capacity of creator and judge. As creator, He calls forth the substance of the soul out of nothing. As Judge, He withholds from this substance, already at the point of this creation, the habitus of original righteousness. (Only a few, Zanchi for example, teach that for a short while the soul possesses justitia originalis [original righteousness], then loses it immediately thereafter.)

3.   A human soul thus coming into being without original righteousness must immediately pass over into positive inherent depravity. This, therefore, is a necessary and immediate consequence of what God withholds from the soul. It is a reality, a real process, but it is not something God does to the soul, only something that the soul undergoes through the particular way in which God creates it.

This last explanation appears to us to be the most probable. We have to admit, however, that it does not remove all objections. The great difficulty present here is that one: (a) wills to keep God free from creating sin; (b) will not have the soul existing a single moment without sin. Now both conditions appear unable to be united in a consistent theory. If God does not cause sin, then it must originate in the already-existing soul. It is then a transition from not being sinful to being sinful, and if one posits this starting point and this end point, one is obliged to let the soul exist sinless for at least in a small moment of time; hence what Zanchi taught regarding the initial possession and immediately following loss of original righteousness. The difficulty here is the same as we found in the section on providence with respect to God’s involvement in the evil deeds of man. There, too, we could not specify a point where the activity of God can be excluded. Everything that was in the deed had to be sustained and brought about by God, and yet at the same time this deed had to take a direction and a quality that could not be called God’s work. One may transfer that to the origin of the soul, and one will feel the difficulty. One could produce images here in great number, but they would all give only a more or less accurate general view of the matter; they cannot resolve the true problem.

Further, it should be observed that the soul is not created by God outside the body but in close communion with it. Insofar as the embryo is no longer formed from the outside by the maternal organism but itself bears within itself a forming principle, this principle must be found in the soul. And insofar as the embryo developing in this way thus still constitutes a part of the maternal organism, the soul enters also into the closest connection with the latter. Herein is the truth of traducianism. Soul and body stand in the most intimate connection with each other and are organically one. So if the body still constitutes a part of the mother, then this cannot remain without influence on the soul. However, it does not seem permissible to draw this out to the point where it would also extend to the propagation of sin. Thinking, the will, and the emotions are entirely or in part tied to bodily mechanisms, from which it follows that, conversely, their development is determined by the formation of these organs. The same cannot be said of sin. It may manifest itself by means of the body, and that it manifests itself by means of the body might be a measure of its intensity. In the strict sense, sin is purely psychical in nature.

Sin belongs to the natural condition of man once it became so by the fall. Everything that belongs to nature has to reproduce. God’s ordinance is such that natural traits and characteristics will be common to parents and children. Conversely, what is purely personal and individual need not reproduce. Nature is the term under which we summarize everything that is common to man. Personality is not something specific to all in the same sense, but differs for everyone. We must hold that sin is natural sin and therefore follows the line of natural reproduction. How this happens we cannot explain further. The ground on which it happens is not located only in a natural law. And the natural character of this sin does not exclude that it also takes on a personal shape for each person. All have a sinful will and a darkened intellect and a depraved emotional life, but because the personality that possesses these capacities is different in each particular instance, sin will nowhere occur equally and develop equally in two individuals.

42. What is meant by the distinction between original sin and actual sin?

In this contrast, “act” should be taken in a broader sense than the word usually has. Here it does not mean external action that is manifested by means of our body, but every conscious welling up of the depravity that is unconsciously present in us. Evil thoughts in this way fall under this concept of actual sins as well as evil words and deeds. One can make the following division:

I.

Peccatum Originale [original sin]

II.

Peccatum Actualis [actual sin]

a) Adam’s first deed imputed to us = peccatum imputatum.

b) Inherent depravity as punishment for that = peccatum inhaerens.

1. absentia justitiae originalis = absence of original righteousness.

2. praesentia mali = presence of positive evil as habitus [disposition].

a) Sinful thoughts by which inherent depravity enters into our consciousness = peccata interna sive cordis.

b) Sinful words and deeds by which sinful thoughts take shape externally = peccata externa sive oris et operis.

43. Can one defend the distinction between “mortal sins” (peccata mortalia) and “venial sins” (peccata venialia)?

Some of the older theologians, proceeding on the true proposition that there are degrees of intensity in the development of sin and that therefore all sins cannot be placed on the same line, wished to adopt this Roman Catholic distinction. Very quickly, however, one saw that it had a completely erroneous meaning for Rome. According to Rome, there are still sins that, considered in themselves, are not worthy of eternal death but only of temporal punishments or punishments in purgatory. Such sins are called peccata venialia. Contrary to this, Scripture teaches that every sin, without distinction, renders [one] guilty of death. All sins, viewed in this way, are mortal sins. There are no sins pardonable in themselves.

If, on the other hand, one wishes to call pardonable those sins for which, by God’s mercy, forgiveness can be received, all sins are pardonable, the sin against the Holy Spirit excepted. Then the latter is the only mortal sin.

In Lutheran dogmatics, the distinction between peccata mortalia and venialia has yet another sense. Namely, it was taught that man can fall from the state of grace by certain transgressions because they are irreconcilable with faith. These are called peccata mortalia. Other sins of a less serious sort are compatible with the continuance of faith and for that reason are called peccata venialia. Since we reject the teaching of the falling away of the saints, we also naturally cannot accept this distinction.

44. What should be observed concerning the distinction between sins of commission and omission (peccata commissionis et omissionis)?

That in the strict sense true sins of omission do not exist. At the basis of all omission is a principle of commission in a wrong direction. If I love God less and forget God, then it is because something else has taken the place of God in my heart. Still, the sin of commission is greater if to this forgetting of God it adds conscious opposition to God.

45. How is the distinction between sin committed against God and against neighbor to be judged?

Here, too, sin against neighbor can be spoken of only in a figurative sense. If we wrong our neighbor, then this becomes sin for us only because God is involved with it. Thus the contrast between sin against God and against neighbor as a contrast between more and less grievous sin is false. Still, one can say: Provided that in our sinning against neighbor the thought of God recedes into the background, this contrast can be traced back to the preceding contrast between sins of commission and omission. Viewing the matter in this way, here, too, one could allow a distinction in degree.

46. What should be observed concerning many additional distinctions?

That their discussion belongs more in ethics than in the field of dogmatics. One further distinguishes:

a)   Between spiritual and fleshly sins (peccata spiritualia and peccata carnalia). This distinction points to a substantive difference. Since, however, Scripture uses the terms “flesh” and “spirit” in another sense, it would be better to speak of psychological and sensual sins. According to scriptural usage, all sin is fleshly.

b)   Between intentional and unintentional sins (peccata deliberata and peccata fortuita). What, however, is completely unintentional can be a consequence of sin but not a sin itself. One should only take care not to identify the contrast of intentional and unintentional with the contrast of conscious and unconscious.

c)   Between blatant sin and sins that are tolerated (peccata clemantia and peccata tolerantiae). By the former one understands those sins that, because of their actual character, demand an immediate revelation of punitive justice—for example the shedding of innocent blood, withholding from a laborer his just wages, etc., etc. The others are sins whose punishment, with the preservation of God’s honor in the well-being of society, can be deferred.

d)   Between reigning and nonreigning sins (peccata regnantia and non regnantia). A reigning sin is a sin that has become so strong in a person that it cannot be suppressed by any other sorts of inclinations or considerations (whether they, in turn, are sinful or not). A nonreigning sin can be resisted.

47. What opinions have been offered concerning the sin against the Holy Spirit?

a)   Some think that this sin, mentioned in Matthew 12:31, 32; Mark 3:28, 29, could only be committed during the time of Christ’s presence on earth according to His human nature. This sin would then consist in a failure to appreciate the miracles of the Lord and in ascribing them to the action of Satan, although one was convinced in his heart that Christ had performed these miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit.

b)   Augustine, the Melanchthonian dogmatics in the Lutheran church, and some Scottish theologians (Guthrie, Chalmers) understand by this sin against the Holy Spirit the impoenitentia finalia, that is, impenitence to the end. From this it would follow that anyone who dies in an unrepentant state commits this sin (cf. Calvin, Institutes, III, iii, 22).

c)   The later Lutheran theologians held, in connection with their doctrine of the apostasy of the saints, that only the regenerate can commit the sin against the Holy Spirit, because according to their view, the state described in Hebrews 6:4–6 was that of the regenerate. The Canons of Dordt enumerate among the errors that are to be rejected the error that the regenerate could commit the sin against the Holy Spirit.

d)   The Reformed conception, which since Calvin is accepted by all dogmaticians, may be presented and justified as follows:

1.   The designation “sin against the Holy Spirit” is a little indefinite, for Scripture makes mention of a sin against the Holy Spirit that it nevertheless does not portray as unpardonable (Eph 4:30). In the gospel, then, mention is also made specifically of “speaking against the Holy Spirit” (Matt 12:32) and of “blaspheming against the Holy Spirit” (Mark 3:29; Luke 12:10).

2.   Apparently this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not persisting in sin in general but a specific form, distinguished from all other forms of unrighteousness. It takes place at a particular moment in time during this life and then makes conversion and forgiveness of sin here and on the day of judgment impossible.

3.   The specific character of this sin is its intentional depreciation and blaspheming of the work of the Holy Spirit, insofar as He reveals the deity of the works of Christ and His glory. And this blaspheming of the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the blaspheming of the Lord Himself. A word spoken against the Son of Man can be forgiven; a word spoken against the Holy Spirit cannot. From this it is sufficiently evident that in order to be able to commit the sin against the Holy Spirit, one has to have recognized His personal activity and has to have entered into a personal relationship with Him. It was rightly observed, however, that the terrible character of the sin against the Holy Spirit is not so much in the person against whom it is committed as it is in the official work of this person. Thus, he who has acknowledged his conviction concerning the truth of the gospel as the work of the Spirit and for whom, consequently, its reliability is beyond all doubt, and who nevertheless blasphemes against it, that person becomes guilty of this sin. If one rejects this specificity, then naturally every sin is a sin committed against the triune God and to this extent is also a sin against the Holy Spirit. The characteristic of intentionality and of violation of the conscience is peculiar to the sin against the Holy Spirit.

4.   Still, Chrysostom and Jerome had no right to limit the possibility of committing this sin to the time of the Lord’s stay on earth. The miracles He performed were a revelation of the Holy Spirit (“If I by the Spirit of God cast out devils,” Matt 12:28), but the working of the Holy Spirit extended much further. He convinces of sin, righteousness, and judgment [John 16:8]. He worked by extraordinary gifts in the apostolic church. He also still works now through common and special grace. Everywhere He appears working officially under the dispensation of the gospel, the sin against Him can be committed.

5.   It has been asked whether the apostasy described in Hebrews 6:4–6; 10:26–29, is to be identified with the sin against the Holy Spirit. To this a differentiating answer should be given. The Gospel teaches that there is only one unpardonable sin. If, now, the Letter to the Hebrews is speaking about an unpardonable sin, then this in general must be the same sin. Further, however, this sin, as it is described in Hebrews 6, is a particular form of the sin against the Holy Spirit that it could assume only in the apostolic age when the Spirit revealed Himself by extraordinary powers and gifts. Because one overlooked this, one so often found portrayed in this passage the state of the regenerate. What one reads here in fact exceeds the usual historical faith of our days, but therefore need not be regenerating grace.

6.   Theologians have emphasized that not every blaspheming of the work of the Holy Spirit in a surge of passion or under severe temptation is to be deemed the sin against the Holy Spirit. They chose to think more of a persisting evil resistance, so that this sin becomes the end point of a willful self-hardening. It is therefore difficult to specify when and in whom unbelief has reached this stage. First John 5:16 speaks of a sin unto death, for which one shall not ask for forgiveness. So, the sin against the Holy Spirit was recognizable. It was that at least in the apostolic age, which possessed the gift of testing the spirits. It will be much more difficult to recognize it where no extraordinary gift of grace qualifies for this spiritual diagnosis. One therefore can never say decisively, “He or she has committed the sin against the Holy Spirit.” It is easier to indicate the negative criterion: Truly fearing that one has made himself guilty of this sin, an expression coming from a tender conscience, is one of the signs of the latter. Because this sin is settled as a permanent disposition of malice, it is incompatible with such apprehension. Hence the rule: Only subsequently, when someone dies after persisting in that disposition, can one with reason decide that the person committed this sin.

7.   To the question regarding the reason why this sin is unpardonable, a twofold answer has been given. Some seek this reason in the essence of sin itself. Because it is the activity of the Spirit that must regenerate and convert man, by blaspheming the Holy Spirit in this exercise of His office one rejects the sole means of salvation that God has ordained for man. This should not be understood as if the sinful opposition expressed in this transgression is invincible for the Holy Spirit. God’s grace is stronger than every opposition. Indeed, since it works in and under the will itself, no opposition even comes into consideration so far as the metaphysical aspect of its working is concerned. Also, it should not be understood as if the sin against the Holy Spirit is so much more abhorrent that the possibility ceases for God to show mercy and let a surety intervene for it. We have no right to assert that any sin in itself is deeper than the unfathomable mercies of God. On the other hand, one may indeed so understand it that God for wise reasons has decreed to reckon among His elect no one who would commit this deed, that He considered it to be an anomaly that such as who had come to this pernicious opposition to the Holy Spirit would nevertheless become temples of the Holy Spirit and would receive that same Spirit as pledge. So the ground of being unpardonable is in God’s free ordination, which at the same time is a moral ordination. He has willed that the number of those in whom He would permit this sin would remain completely separated from the number of His children. So we have here an example of the rejection of a class. Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit thereby shows that he has no part in the sacrifice of Christ, inasmuch as he does not belong to the elect. Christ has not died for him; and if he nevertheless would be saved, humanly speaking, a new sacrifice would be necessary. Hence it is said of such people that they again crucify the Son of God to themselves and put Him openly to shame (Heb 6:6).

8.   By the sin against the Son of Man, contrasted with blaspheming the Holy Spirit, seems to be meant a rejection of Christ that has not developed into a clear awareness of His deity and His worthiness as the Messiah, as that is testified to the heart by the Holy Spirit. Thus Christ prayed for forgiveness for those who crucified Him because they did not know what they were doing. So, too, Paul persecuted the church of God, but he did so ignorantly, and grace was shown to him. In the Gospel, it is not said directly that the Pharisees, whom Christ warned about this sin, were actually guilty of it, but in any case it is to be presumed that they were bordering on it.

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