02.02.02 - Section 2

Section II. The imputation of sin not consistent with the goodness of God. This point has been already indirectly considered, but it is worthy of a more direct and complete examination. It is very remarkable that although Dr. Dick admits he cannot reconcile the scheme of imputation with the character of God, or remove its seeming hardships, not to say cruelty, he yet positively affirms that “it is a proof of the goodness of God.”(168) Surely, if the covenant of works, involving the imputation of sin, as explained by Dr. Dick, be a “proof of the divine goodness,” it cannot but appear to be too severe. But as this point, on which he scarcely dwells at all, is more elaborately and fully discussed by President Edwards, we shall direct our attention to him.

“It is objected,” says Edwards, “that appointing Adam to stand in this great affair as the moral head of his posterity, and so treating them as one with him, is injurious to them.” “To which,” says he, “I answer, it is demonstrably otherwise; that such a constitution was so far from being injurious to Adam’s posterity any more than if every one had been appointed to stand for himself personally, that it was, in itself considered, attended with a more eligible probability of a happy issue than the latter would have been; and so is a constitution that truly expresses the goodness of its Author.” Now, let us see how this is demonstrated.

“There is a greater tendency to a happy issue in such an appointment,” says he, “than if every one had been appointed to stand for himself; especially on these accounts: (1.) That Adam had stronger motives to watchfulness than his posterity would have had; in that, not only his own eternal welfare lay at stake, but also that of all his posterity. (2.) Adam was in a state of complete manhood when his trial began.”(169) In the first place, then, the constitution for which Edwards contends is “an expression of the divine goodness,” because it presented stronger motives to obedience than if it had merely suspended the eternal destiny of Adam alone upon his conduct. The eternal welfare of his posterity was staked upon his obedience; and, having this stupendous motive before him, he would be more likely to preserve his allegiance than if the motive had been less powerful. The magnitude of the motive, says Edwards, is the grand circumstance which evinces the goodness of God in the appointment of such a constitution. If this be true, it is very easy to see how the Almighty might have made a vast improvement in his own constitution for the government of the world. He might have made the motive still stronger, and thereby made the appointment or covenant still better: instead of suspending merely the eternal destiny of the human race upon the conduct of Adam, he might have staked the eternal fate of the universe upon it. According to the argument of Edwards, what a vast, what a wonderful improvement would this have been in the divine constitution for the government of the world, and how much more conspicuously would it have displayed the goodness of its Divine Author!

Again, the scheme of Edwards is condemned out of his own mouth. If this scheme be better than another, because its motives are stronger, why did not God render it still more worthy of his goodness, by rendering its motives still more powerful and efficacious? Edwards admits, nay, he insists, that God might easily have rendered the motives of his moral government perfectly efficacious and successful. He repeatedly declares that God could have prevented all sin, “by giving such influences of his Spirit as would have been absolutely effectual to hinder it.” If the goodness of a constitution, then, is to be determined by the strength of its motives, as the argument of Edwards supposes, then we are bound, according to his principles, to pronounce that for which he contends unworthy of the goodness of God, as being radically unsound and defective. This is emphatically the case, as the Governor of the world might have strengthened the motives to obedience indefinitely, not by augmenting the danger, but by increasing the security of his subjects; that is to say, not by making the penalty more terrific, but by giving a greater disposition to obedience. The same thing may be clearly seen from another point of view. Let us suppose, for instance, that God had established the constitution or covenant, that if Adam had persevered in obedience, then all his posterity should be confirmed in holiness and happiness; and that if he fell, he should fall for himself alone. Would not such an appointment, we ask, have been more likely to have been attended with a happy issue than that for which Edwards contends? Let us suppose again, that after such a constitution had been established, its Divine Author had really secured the obedience of Adam; would not this have made a “happy issue” perfectly certain? Why then was not such a constitution established? It would most assuredly have been an infinitely clearer and more beautiful expression of the divine goodness than that of Edwards. Hence, the philosophy of Edwards easily furnishes an unspeakably better constitution for the government of the world, than that which has been established by the wisdom of God! Is it not evident, that the advocates of such a scheme should never venture before the tribunal of reason at all? Is it not evident, that their only safe policy is to insist, as they sometimes do, that we do not know what is consistent, or inconsistent, with the attributes of God, in his arrangements for the government of the world? Is it not evident, that their truest wisdom is to be found in habitually dwelling on the littleness, weakness, misery, and darkness of the human mind, and in rebuking its arrogance for presuming to pry into the mysteries of their system? The vindication of the divine goodness by Edwards, is, we think it must be conceded, exceedingly weak. All it amounts to is this,—that this scheme is an expression of the goodness of God, because, in certain respects, it is better than a scheme which might have been established. So far from showing it to be the best possible scheme, his philosophy shows it might be greatly improved in the very respects in which its excellency is supposed to consist. In other words, he contends that God has displayed his goodness in the appointment of such a constitution, on the ground that he might have made a worse; though, according to his own principles, it is perfectly evident that he might have made a better! Is this to express, or to deny, the absolute, infinite goodness of God? Is it to manifest the glory of that goodness to the eye of man, or to shroud it in clouds and darkness?

Edwards also says, that “the goodness of God in such a constitution with Adam appears in this: that if there had been no sovereign, gracious establishment at all, but God had proceeded on the basis of mere justice, and had gone no farther than this required, he might have demanded of Adam and all his posterity, that they should have performed perfect, perpetual obedience.” The italics are all his own. On this passage, we have to remark, that it is built upon unfounded assumptions. It is frequently said, we are aware, that if it had not been for the redemption of the world by a “sovereign, gracious” dispensation, the whole race of man might have been justly exposed to the torments of hell forever. But where is the proof? Is it found in the word of God? This tells us what is, what has been, and what will be; but it is not given to speculate upon what might be. For aught we know, if there had been no salvation through Christ, as a part of the actual constitution and system of the world, then there would have been no other part of that system whatever. We are not told, and we do not know, what it would have been consistent with the justice of God to do in relation to the world, if there had been no remedy provided for its restoration. Perhaps it might never have been created at all. The work of Christ is the great sun and centre of the system as it is; and if this had never been a part of the original grand design, we do not know that the planets would have been created to wander in eternal darkness. We do not know that even the justice of God would have created man, and permitted him to fall, wandering everlastingly amid the horrors of death, without hope and without remedy. We find nothing of the kind in the word of God; and in our nature it meets with no response, except a wail of unutterable horror. We like not, we confess, those vindications of God’s goodness, which consist in drawing hideous, black pictures of his justice, and then telling us that it is not so dark as these. We want not to know whether there might not be darker things in the universe than God’s love; we only want to know if there could be anything brighter, or better, or more beautiful. The most astounding feature of this vindication of the divine goodness still remains to be noticed. We are told that the constitution in question is good, because it was so likely to have had a “happy issue.” And when this constitution was established by the sovereign will and pleasure of God, the conduct of Adam, it is conceded, was perfectly foreseen by him. At the very time this constitution was established, its Divine Author foresaw with perfect absolute certainty what would be the issue. He knew that the great federal head, so appointed by him, would transgress the covenant, and bring down the curse of “death, temporal, spiritual, and eternal,” upon all his posterity. O, wonderful goodness! to promise eternal life to the human race on a condition which he certainly foreknew would not be performed! Amazing grace! to threaten eternal death to all mankind, on a condition which he certainly foreknew would be fulfilled! This cannot be evaded, by asserting that the same difficulty attaches to the fact, that God created Adam foreseeing he would fall. His foreknowledge did not necessitate the fall of Adam. It left him free as God had created him. Life and death were set before him, and he had the power to stand, as well as the power to fall. He had no right to complain of God, then, if, under such circumstances, he chose to rebel, and incur the penalty. But if the scheme of Edwards be true, the descendants of Adam did not have their fate in their own hands. It did not depend on their own choice. It was necessitated, even prior to their existence, by the divine constitution which had indissolubly connected their awful destiny, their temporal and eternal ruin, with an event already foreseen. And the constitution binding such awful consequences to an event already foreseen, is called an expression of the goodness of God!

Suppose, for example, that a great prince should promise his subjects that on the happening of a certain event, over which they had no control, he would confer unspeakable favours upon them. Suppose also, that at the same time he should declare to them, that if the event should not happen, he would load them with irons, cast them into prison, and inflict the greatest imaginable punishments upon them during the remainder of their lives. Suppose again, that at the very time he thus made known his gracious intentions to them, he knew perfectly well that the event on which his favour was suspended would not happen. Then, according to his certain foreknowledge, the event fails, and the penalty of the covenant or appointment is inflicted upon his subjects:—they are cast into prison; they are bound in chains, and perpetually tormented with the greatest of all imaginable evils:—not because they had transgressed the appointment or sovereign constitution, but because an event had taken place over which they had no control. Now, who would call such a ruler a good prince? Who could conceive, indeed, of a more cruel or deceitful tyrant? But we submit it to the candid reader, if he be not more like the prince of predestination, than the great God of heaven and earth? This scheme of imputation, so far from being an expression of infinite goodness, were indeed an exhibition of the most frightful cruelty and injustice. It would be a useful, as well as a most curious inquiry, to examine the various contrivances of ingenious men, in order to bring the doctrine of imputation into harmony with the justice of God. We shall briefly allude to only two of these wonderful inventions,—those of Augustine and Edwards. Neither of these celebrated divines supposed that a foreign sin, properly so called, is ever imputed to any one; but that the sin of Adam, which is imputed to his descendants, is their own sin, as well as his.(170) But here the question arises, How could they make Adam’s sin to be the sin of his descendants, many of whom were born thousands of years after it was committed?

Augustine, as is well known, maintained the startling paradox, that all mankind were present in Adam, and sinned in him. In this way, he supposed that all men became partakers in the guilt of Adam’s sin, and consequently justly liable to the penalty due to his transgression. Augustine was quite too good a logician not to perceive, that if all men are responsible for Adam’s sin, because they were in him when he transgressed, then, it follows, that we are also responsible for the sins of all our ancestors, from whom we are more immediately descended. This follows from that maxim of jurisprudence, from that dictate of common-sense, that a rule of law is coëxtensive with the reason upon which it is based. Hence, as Wiggers remarks: “Augustine thought it not improbable that the sins of ancestors universally are imputed to their descendants.”(171) This conclusion is clearly set forth in the extracts made by the translator of Wiggers.(172) If this scheme be true, we know indeed that we are all guilty of Adam’s sin; but who, or how many of the human race, were the perpetrators of Cain’s murder beside himself, we cannot determine. Indeed, if this frightful hypothesis be well founded, if it form a part of the moral constitution of the world, no man can possibly tell how many thefts, murders, or treasons, he may have committed in his ancestors. One thing is certain, however, and that is, that the man who is born later in the course of time, will have the more sins to answer for, and the more fearful will be the accumulation of his guilt; as all the transgressions of all his ancestors, from Adam down to his immediate parents, will be laid upon his head.

Clearly as this consequence is involved in the fundamental principle of Augustine’s theory, the good father could not but reel and stagger under it. “Respecting the sins of the other parents,” says he, “the progenitors from Adam down to one’s own immediate father, it may not improperly be debated, whether the child is implicated in the evil acts and multiplied original faults of all, so that each one is the worse in proportion as he is later; or that, in respect to the sins of their parents, God threatens posterity to the third and fourth generation, because, by the moderation of his compassion, he does not further extend his anger in respect to the faults of progenitors, lest those on whom the grace of regeneration is not conferred, should be pressed with too heavy a burden in their own eternal damnation, if they were compelled to contract by way of origin (originaliter) the sins of all their preceding parents from the commencement of the human race, and to suffer the punishment due to them.(173) Whether, on so great a subject, anything else can or cannot be found, by a more diligent reading and scrutiny of the Scriptures, I dare not hastily affirm.”(174)

Thus does the sturdy logician, notwithstanding his almost indomitable hardihood, seem to stand appalled before the consequences to which his principles would inevitably conduct him. Having followed those principles but a little way, the scene becomes so dark with his representations of the divine justice, that he feels constrained to retrace his steps, and arbitrarily introduce the divine mercy, in order to mitigate the indescribable horrors which continually thicken around him. Such hesitation, such wavering and inconsistency, is the natural result of every scheme which places the decisions of the head in violent conflict with the indestructible feelings of the heart. In his attempt to reconcile the scheme of imputation with the justice of God, Edwards has met with as little success as Augustine. For this purpose, he supposed that God had constituted an identity between Adam and all his posterity, whereby the latter became partakers of his rebellion. “I think it would go far toward directing us to the more clear conception and right statement of this affair,” says he, in reference to imputation, “were we steadily to bear this in mind, that God, in every step of his proceedings with Adam, in relation to the covenant or constitution established with him, looked on his posterity as being one with him. And though he dealt more immediately with Adam, it yet was as the head of the whole body, and the root of the whole tree; and in his proceedings with him, he dealt with all the branches as if they had been then existing in their root. From which it will follow, that both guilt, or exposedness to punishment, and also depravity of heart, came upon Adam’s posterity just as they came upon him, as much as if he and they had all coëxisted, like a tree with many branches; allowing only for the difference necessarily resulting from the place Adam stood in as head or root of the whole. Otherwise, it is as if, in every step of proceeding, every alteration in the root had been attended at the same instant with the same alteration throughout the whole tree, in each individual branch. I think this will naturally follow on the supposition of their being a constituted oneness or identity of Adam and his posterity in this affair.”(175) As the sap of a tree, Edwards has said, spreads from the root of a tree to all its branches, so the original sin of Adam descends from him through the generations of men. In the serious promulgation of such sentiments, it is only forgotten that sin is not the sap of a tree, and that the whole human race is not really one and the same person. Such an idea of personal identity is as utterly unintelligible as the nature of the sin and the responsibility with which it is so intimately associated. Surely these are the dark dreams of men, not the bright and shining lights of eternal truth.

Before we take leave of President Edwards, we would remark, that he proceeds on the same supposition with Calvin,(176) Bates,(177) Dwight,(178) Dick, and a host of others, that suffering is always a punishment of sin, and of “sin in them who suffer.”(179) “The light of nature,” says Edwards, “or tradition from ancient revelation, led the heathen to conceive of death as in a peculiar manner an evidence of divine vengeance. Thus we have an account, that when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on Paul’s hand, they said among themselves, ’No doubt, this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the seas, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.’ “(180) We think that the barbarians concluded rashly: it is certain that St. Paul was neither a murderer nor a god. Nor, indeed, if the venomous beast had taken his life, would this have proved him to be a murderer, any more than its falling off into the fire proved him to be a god, according to the rash judgment of the barbarians. There is a better source of philosophy, if we mistake not, than the rash, hasty, foolish judgments of barbarians.