107. III. Objections To The Theory.

III. Objections To The Theory. So far we have considered the arguments which the representative theory brings in proof of the immediate imputation of Adam’s sin as the judicial or penal ground of the common depravity of human nature. Beyond our answer to these arguments there are a few objections to the theory which must not be omitted.

1. No Such Headship of Adam.—It is not the natural headship which is here questioned; it is the federal or forensic headship, as maintained in the representative theory. The deeper idea is that of a covenant between God and Adam, with mutual stipulations of duty and promise—duty on the human side and promise on the divine side. In the obligation of duty Adam should not only answer for himself, but also represent his offspring, so that they should fully share in the righteousness and reward of his obedience, or equally in the guilt and punishment of his disobedience. So, on his side God should reward or punish Adam, personally, and equally his offspring as represented by him, just as he might fulfill or violate the obligation of duty as stipulated in the covenant. The implied and the frequently expressed part of Adam in such a covenant would clearly have been a usurpation. Nor is it to be thought that God could have recognized in him any such right, or have entered into any such stipulations with him on its unwarranted assumption. All that can reasonably be meant is, that in the primitive probation God, solely in his own agency, instituted a federal economy, so that the trial of Adam should, on the principle of representation, be the decisive trial of the race. The irrational idea of Adam’s part in the covenant is thus excluded, but the fundamental principle remains, and the consequences to the race are the very same. On his obedience, all would have shared with him in the reward of immortality, confirmed holiness, and eternal blessedness. As he sinned, all share with him the full measure of guilt and loss, and the same desert of an eternal penal doom. “Every thing promised to him was promised to them. And every thing threatened against him, in case of transgression, was threatened against them.”^[530] This is but the repetition, in substance, of what many others have said. As Adam sinned, very naturally the penal consequences of his headship have come into great doctrinal prominence, and received almost exclusive attention; but the principle of reward, which, on his obedience, would have secured to the race all the blessings promised him, is just as central to this federal economy as the principle of penal retribution. Thus the trial of the race was in Adam, with the judicial consequence of an eternal blessedness or an eternal penal doom.

^[530]Hodge:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, p. 121.

There is little foundation for so great a structure. Appeal is made to the Mosaic narrative of the Adamic probation. Many things said to Adam and Eve must have had respect to their offspring, and the race is involved in many and great evils through their sin and fall (Genesis 1:26-28; Genesis 3:16-19). This is admitted. We have previously maintained the same. But the real question is whether such consequences are punishments, with their judicial ground in the sin of Adam as representative of the race. To assume that they are is to assume the full doctrinal content of the federal headship. This, however, is the question in issue, and its assumption will not answer the demand for proof. The proof of such a federal headship is not in the Mosaic narrative. Proof is attempted from the words of Hosea by rendering the text, “But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant” (Hosea 6:7). There is really no proof, because “like men,” as given in the Authorized Version, may be the true rendering. Even the rendering, “like Adam,” must utterly fail to carry with it the full sense of the Adamic covenant in the representative theory. Much use is here made of the two great texts of Paul (Romans 5:12-19; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22), which we have previously considered. But as we found in them no proof of a common participation in the sin of Adam through imputation, so they can give no proof of an Adamic covenant which is maintained as the essential ground of such imputation.

There is no federal headship of Adam on which all men equally with himself share the guilt of his sin. On the Calvinistic views of this question Pope says: “But such speculations as these stand or fall with the general principle of a specific covenant with Adam as representing his posterity, a covenant of which the Scripture does not speak.”^[531] The vital connection of personal agency and moral responsibility is too thoroughly pervasive of the Scriptures to allow any place therein for a federal headship which sunders that connection and makes all men sharers in the sin of Adam. “This is so little agreeable to that distinct agency which enters into the very notion of an accountable being, that it cannot be maintained, and it destroys the sound distinction between original and actual sin. It asserts, indeed, the imputation of the actual commission of Adam’s sin to his descendants, which is false in fact; makes us stand chargeable with the full latitude of his transgression, and all its attendant circumstances; and constitutes us, separate from all actual voluntary offense, equally guilty with him, all which are repugnant equally to our consciousness and to the equity of the case.”^[532] The force of this argument is not in the least weakened by the failure of Mr. Watson to anticipate the more recent Calvinistic distinction between the guilt and the act of Adam’s sin in the imputation. It is the ethical element involved in the imputation that gives the chief weight to his objection.

^[531]Christian Theology, vol. ii, p. 78.

^[532]Watson:Theological Institutes, vol. ii, p. 53.

2. Supersedure of a Common Probation.—In such a covenant as the representative theory maintains the obedience of Adam would have secured to the race severally, and without any personal trial, eternal holiness and blessedness. “The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.”^[533] Of course, in such a covenant the contingency of universal righteousness and blessedness must answer to the contingency of universal guilt and perdition. We have previously shown how fully the latter is set forth in the maintenance of the representative theory. The former is just as really and fully a part of the theory, and is the part specially set forth in the above citation. Adam represented all men in his own probation. “They stood their probation in him, and do not stand each man for himself.”^{[534] [533]} The Westminster Confession, chap, vii, sec. ii.

^[534]Hodge:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, p. 133. Also Witsius:The Covenants, vol. i, p. 36; Raymond:Systematic Theology, vol. ii, pp. 104, 105. The theory thus places the probation of the race in Adam, with the contingency of a universal and eternal blessedness or misery, just as he might fulfill or transgress the divine command. There is no ground in either reason, analogy, or Scripture for such a position. It assumes that all men would have been constituted personally righteous by the imputation of the personal righteousness of Adam, and so have been rewarded with eternal blessedness. This is a most exaggerated account of the temporary obedience of one man, and, in the breadth of its possible blessings, lifts it into rivalry with the redemptive mediation of Christ.

3. Guilt and Punishment of the Innocent.—This theory denies all direct sharing of the race in either the act or the demerit of Adam’s sin. This is its distinction from the realistic theory, which, in its higher form, asserts both. As the race had no part in the agency of Adam, his sinning could have no immediate consequence of demerit and guilt upon them as upon himself. Hence, until the judicial act of immediate imputation, all must have been innocent in fact, and must have so appeared even in the view of the divine justice as it proceeded to cover them with the guilt of an alien sin, a sin in no sense their own, and then on the ground of such gratuitous guilt to inflict upon them the penalty of moral depravity and death. Thus the race, as yet innocent in fact, is made the subject of guilt and punishment.

4. Factitious Guilt of the Race.—The immediate imputation of sin is by its own definition simply the accounting to all men the guilt of a sin which is confessedly not their own. They had no part in the commission of that sin. The imputed guilt has no ground of demerit in them. In a merely putative mode, and without any desert in themselves, all men are accounted amenable to the divine punishment. This utter separation of the guilt from demerit, this absolute sundering of the reatus puenae from the reatus culpae, must reduce the guilt of the race to a merely factitious character. The word factitious is here used in no light sense. On the supposition of such imputed guilt, we have simply pointed out its unavoidable character. Further, it is only by an artificial measure of law that the one sin of one man could be made to render equally guilty with himself all the millions of the race. The theory must here keep within its own limit, and assume nothing from the realistic theory. There was the one representative and the one sin, with its own intrinsic demerit. The intrinsic guilt was in just the measure of this demerit. Who shall say that it was sufficient for an eternal penal doom of the race in the retribution of the divine justice? How, then, could it be made to cover every soul of the race with a guilt equal to that of the sinning representative, except by an artificial measure of law?

5. A Darker Problem of Evil.—We have previously shown that this theory assumes to vindicate the divine providence in the existence of so great an evil as the common native depravity by accounting it a punishment justly inflicted upon the race. We are born in a state of moral ruin, and the evil is very great. Hence it must be a punishment; for, otherwise, it could not be reconciled with the justice and goodness of God. But if a punishment, it must have its ground in guilt. The principle is accepted, at least by implication, that “no just constitution will punish the innocent.” We have seen how it is attempted to secure the principle in this case. The penal infliction of depravity is anticipated by the imputation of the guilt of an alien sin to the race. But no such putative ground could justify the penal infliction. Nor is the native evil any less by calling it a punishment. There is no relief in accounting the innocent guilty in anticipation of such a penal infliction. There is a double and deeper wrong. Verily, there is no theodicy in this doctrine, but only a darker problem of evil.