192. II. The Issue With Calvinism.

II. The Issue With Calvinism.

We have seen the position of Calvinism, that original sin constitutes a real and sufficient ground of election and reprobation, and also its assumption, that the Arminian doctrine of original sin fully concedes this ground. We have also seen, in a general view, the manner in which Arminians defend their doctrine against this assumption, and have given their answer in various citations. We have intimated that the method of his defense is open to review, and we take up the topic of the present section for this purpose.

1. Underlying Principle of the Issue.—The principle is, that original sin in the sense of demerit and damnableness is a real and sufficient ground of election and reprobation; or, a little more exactly, that such original sin would clear the divine reprobation of a part of mankind of all injustice and wrong. This position is thoroughly valid. The purely gracious election and salvation of a part could be no injustice to the reprobate, nor could their own reprobation, as they would thereby simply be delivered over to their merited doom. There can be no injustice or wrong in the infliction of deserved penalty. Election and reprobation may still be disputed as facts, as may also the original sin which is claimed to justify the latter; but if such universal sinfulness be a reality, then, so far as justice is concerned, the divine reprobation of a part of mankind may be thoroughly vindicated.

2. Real Point of the Issue.—The real point is, whether the Arminian doctrine of original sin concedes the ground of election and reprobation as maintained in Calvinism; or, more definitely, whether Arminianism holds a form of original sin which, with the gracious election and salvation of a part of mankind, would justify the divine reprobation of the rest. Whatever may be the truth in this case, the fact of such reprobation would still be an open question. As election and reprobation are no logical implication of a sufficient ground in original sin, so the Arminian concession of such a ground could in no sense imply their actuality. Yet the concession of such a ground, or the holding a form of original sin which constitutes such a ground, would go to the dialectic advantage of Calvinism against Arminianism, because it would thoroughly void an important argument against reprobation. The whole argument against its injustice would thus be sacrificed. Whether Arminianism concedes this ground must be determined in view of its doctrine of original sin, together with its doctrine of a common justification through the grace of Christ. We are thus brought to the question of special interest in the present section.

3. Arminian Treatment of the Issue.—We already have the material for the required review. It was given partly in citations from Arminian theologians on original sin, partly in citations on a common infant justification in Christ, and partly in showing how they set forth this justification as the disproof of any ground of election and reprobation in their doctrine of original sin. In the present inquiry we shall need only the ruling ideas presented under those several heads. The doctrine of original sin maintained in the previous citations substantially the Augustinian doctrine. Less stress is laid upon the intrinsic sinfulness and demerit of the common native depravity, though, as we have seen, this form of original sin is repeatedly asserted; but the common sharing in the guilt of Adam’s sin, and the common amenability to the penalty which he incurred in the three forms of spiritual, physical, and eternal death, receive frequent and unqualified expression. It is at this point that the Calvinist takes up the question and affirms that this doctrine of original sin concedes the ground of election and reprobation. We must say that the Calvinist is right. If through a common sharing in the sin of Adam, or on account of a sinful nature inherited from him, all are justly amenable to the penalty of eternal death, then in the election of grace God may without any injustice or wrong leave a part to their deserved doom. The Arminian replies, that we have as yet but a part of the case; that if there is a universal condemnation through the sin of Adam, there is also a universal justification through the grace of Christ; that the justification cancels the condemnation. Prior citations fully verify this general statement. On the ground of this free justification it is denied that any concession is made to Calvinism in the interest of election and reprobation. This is the uniform Arminian defense, of long standing and often repeated; so that to question its directness or sufficiency may seem rash and offensive. Yet we must think it neither direct nor sufficient; and, more than this, that it leads to doctrinal confusion and contradiction. It does not go to the point of the issue, which is the state of the race simply from its Adamic connection. Here, as seen in previous citations, the doctrine maintained is substantially one with the Calvinistic. Here is where the Calvinist makes his point and claims that the ground of reprobation, so far as justice is concerned, is fully conceded. This is the fact in the case; nor can its polemical fairness be questioned.

If we agree with the Calvinist on the consequence of the Adamic connection of the race, that all are thereby constituted sinners in the sense of punitive desert, there is where we ought to meet the issue—where those who hold the common Adamic sinfulness ought to meet it. Our theologians, as we have seen, refuse to do this, but interpose a common justification in Christ, and on this ground dispute the Calvinistic position. The real issue is thus avoided. There are here three closely connected questions: the consequence of Adam’s sin to the race; the manner in which God has actually dealt with the race as involved in that consequence; and the manner in which he might justly have dealt with it. “We have seen the substantial agreement on the first question—that by the sin of Adam all are constituted sinners. There is a wide difference on the second question. With the Calvinist, God dealt with the sinful race in the mode of election and reprobation—redeeming a part of mankind; with the Arminian, in the mode of a universal atonement. On this issue the truth is surely with the Arminian. But this gives him no logical right to shun the third question—the manner in which God might have dealt with the race. The Calvinist asserts that, as by the sin of Adam all men deserve an eternal penal doom, God might justly exclude a part from the grace of redemption. If we hold the Adamic sinfulness in which that position is grounded we must meet the issue at this point. To answer that God has not so dealt with the race is to evade the question; and there is no escape in this mode. The doctrine of a common Adamic sin, with the desert of an eternal penal doom, binds us to its logical implications. To say that God could not justly inflict this penalty on all mankind is to impeach his justice in the common amenability which is maintained. If the universal execution of the penalty would be unjust, the universal sentence of condemnation would be unjust. The imposition of an unjust condemnation is as contrary to the divine equity as the infliction of undeserved punishment. The doctrine maintained in previous citations from Arminian theologians means that the offspring of Adam, simply on account of his sin, and without any personal fault of their own, might justly be doomed to an eternal penal death. It means that, previous to the common justification in Christ, all are under this condemnation, and might justly suffer the infliction of this penal doom. “Calvinists are now ashamed of consigning infants to the torments of hell: they begin to extend their election to them all.”^[894] Fletcher said this more than a hundred years ago. Yet Fletcher himself maintained a doctrine of original sin which means the desert of such a doom; and many Arminians in his succession have done the same. If the infliction of such a doom would deeply offend one’s sensibilities, why should not the doctrine of its just desert equally offend one’s moral reason? If Calvinists are ashamed of the doctrine of infant damnation, it seems quite time that Arminians were ashamed of the doctrine of a universal infant desert of damnation.

^[894]Fletcher: Works, vol. i, p. 284. The Arminian doctrine of a universal justification in Christ, so far from disproving this sense of infant guilt, strongly affirms it. It this justification is a reality, as it is uniformly held to be, then the guilt of original sin must also be a reality. In the order of facts the guilt must precede its cancellation. In the previous citations we have seen that both are held to be realities, and that the innocence of childhood is not its natural birthright, but the result of its justification from the guilt of original sin. Thus the one is set over against the other; and each is held to interpret the other. “As by one man’s disobedience many were made (or constituted, both in fact and by imputation) sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous. . . . In whatever sense the redemption was an act external to the race and for its benefit, the fall was external to the successive generations of mankind and for their condemnation. Here it is obvious, or ought to be obvious, that the condemnation and the life are correlatives: the judgment is the opposite of the reign in life as the result of abundance of grace.” “There are two aspects of Christ’s redeeming intervention, one absolutely universal and one particular. As to the former, in whatsoever sense the race of man died in Adam it lives again in Christ.”^[895] Thus a real justification of the race in Christ means a real condemnation and guilt of the race on account of the sin of Adam ; and, conversely, a real condemnation in Adam means a real justification in Christ as the cancellation of the common Adamic sin. Thus the justification which is held to cancel the common guilt of original sin means the prior reality of this guilt, with its amenability to the penal doom of sin, and that such is the natural state of all infants.

^[895]Pope:Christian Theology, vol. ii, pp. 48, 49; vol. iii, p. 435.

4. Doctrinal Confusion and Contradiction.—The Arminian theologians who hold the stronger view of original sin do not adhere to their own doctrine, but depart from it in a manner which involves confusion and contradiction. This appears in their persistent insistence that the universal justification shall be recognized as a part of their doctrine, and in constantly setting forth this justification as the vindication of the divine economy in the universal Adamic guilt and condemnation. But no justly imposed guilt or penalty can need any such vindication; and the constant setting it forth not only betrays serious doubt of the consistency of a common Adamic sin with the divine justice, but really means its inconsistency.

Such are the implications in the maintenance of the position that, without the universal atonement in Christ, God could not have permitted the propagation of the race, and for the reason of its native sinfulness. This is so familiar a fact that references are quite needless. We cite a single instance: “No race unredeemed, and without hope of redemption, could in the universe of a holy God continue to propagate its generations.”^[896] If the doctrine of original sin be true in the sense in which we have found it maintained, there could be no hinderance in the divine justice to such propagation, because no one would suffer any undeserved penal doom. The denial of the propagation of the race, except under an economy of universal redemption, is a part of the argument to clear the divine justice of all reason of impeachment in the matter of original sin. There can be no reason for this defense, except with the consent that original sin, with its penalty, is in itself an injustice. This again is a departure from the doctrine maintained, with the result of confusion and contradiction. Such, too, is the implication of another point frequently made : that any evil which we may suffer through the sin of Adam is entirely consistent with the divine justice, if an equal good is conferred or attainable through the redemption in Christ.^[897] The principle of compensation is of value in respect to providential suffering, but is irrelevant and valueless in the present question. If the penalties of original sin are in themselves consistent with the divine justice no compensatory provision is needed for their vindication; if inconsistent, no such provision can justify them. Only by a departure from the asserted doctrine of original sin, and with the concession of its injustice, can such a vindication be consistently attempted.

^[896]Pope:Christian Theology, vol. ii, p. 296.

^[897]Wesley: Works, vol. v, p. 589; Watson:Theological Institutes, vol. ii, pp. 57, 60.

There is an open tendency to drop eternal death from the penalties of original sin, and to limit the common amenability to the two forms of spiritual and physical death. This has actually been done, and in some instances by those who have openly affirmed the common amenability to the penalty of eternal death on account of the sin of Adam. In opposition to that view the point is definitely made that actual personal sinning is the only ground of such penalty.^[898] The most serious aspect of the doctrine is thus discarded, but at the cost of consistency, and in some instances with the consequence of self-contradiction.

^[898]Wesley: Works, vol. v, pp. 556, 577; Watson:Theological Institutes, vol. ii, pp. 397400; Pope:Christian Theology, vol. ii, p. 59; vol. iii, p. 437; Curry:Fragments, pp. 164, 165. With the two forms of penal death, the principle remains, that all Mau justly be punished for a sin in the commission of which they had no agency, or for a corruption of nature in the origin of which they had no part. This is the real perplexity of the question. Nor is there any rational solution, nor relief even, in the dismission of eternal death as a penalty of Adamic sin. “The force of the reasons brought against imputing Adam’s sin to his posterity (if there be any force in them) lies in this, that Adam and his posterity are not one. But this lies as properly against charging a part of the guilt as the whole. For Adam’s posterity, by not being the same with him, had no more hand in a little of what was done than in the whole. They were as absolutely free from being concerned in that act partly as they were wholly. And there is no reason to be brought why one man’s sin cannot be justly reckoned to another’s account who was not then in being, in the whole of it, but what will as properly lie against its being reckoned to him in any part, so as that he should be subject to any condemnation or punishment on that account. If those reasons are good, all the difference there can be is this, that to bring a great punishment on infants for Adam’s sin is a great act of injustice, and to bring a comparatively small punishment is a smaller act of injustice, but not, that this is not as truly and demonstrably an act of injustice as the other.”^[899] This reasoning is conclusive of our own position, and none the less so because Edwards aimed at the support of his own strong doctrine of original sin. “We hold this to be a solid and unanswerable argument; and we hold also that God can no more commit a small act of injustice than a great one. Hence, in the eye ofreason there is no medium between rejecting the whole of the imputation of Adam’s sin, and ceasing to object against the imputation of the whole of it as inconsistent with the justice and goodness of God. We may arbitrarily wipe out a portion of it in order to relieve our imagination; but this brings no relief to the calm and passionless reason. It may still the wild tumults of emotion, but it cannot silence the voice of the intellect.”^[900] Watson makes the same point, and really with the same aim as Edwards. Having asserted, and supported by argument, the common amenability to the penalty of eternal death on account of the sin of Adam, he says: “The justice of this is objected to, a point which will be immediately considered; but it is now sufficient to say that if the making the descendants of Adam liable to eternal death, because of his offense, be unjust, the infliction of temporal death is so also, the duration of the punishment making no difference in the simple question of justice. If punishment, whether of loss or of pain, be unjust, its measure and duration may be a greater or a less injustice; but it is unjust in every degree.”^{[901] [899]} Edwards: Works, vol. ii, pp. 494, 495.

^[900]Bledsoe:Theodicy, p. 260.

^[901]Theological Institutes, vol. ii, p. 55. The reasoning in the above citations is thoroughly valid and conclusive. Nor do the Scriptures allow any such distinction between temporal and eternal penalties, or make any exception in case of the latter. But no Arminian can abide by the whole doctrine; for it is contradictory to all the ruling principles of his system. A doctrine which means that an infant of the thousandth °generation from Adam might for his sin be justly doomed to an eternal penal death is too heavy a load for the Arminian faith. Calvinism itself no longer attempts to bear this burden. Indeed, the Arminian retreat is no surprise. Instances appear in previous citations and references. First, in treating original sin simply in view of the Adamic connection of the race, a common amenability to the penalty of eternal death on account of Adam’s sin is openly asserted and maintained; then in treating the question in other relations, that amenability is just as openly denied and controverted.

We may instance the case of Mr. Watson; certainly not for the purpose of pointing out his inconsistency as an end, but rather as a means of showing that the doctrine of original sin which he maintained must lead any Arminian into doctrinal confusion and contradiction. We have seen that he asserted, and supported by argument, the common amenability to the penalty of eternal death on account of the sin of Adam. Again we have seen him discarding this position, and asserting that actual personal sinning is the only ground of such amenability. Then, in controverting the doctrine of reprobation in its sublapsarian form, which maintains that, as for the sin of Adam all men are justly amenable to the penalty of eternal death, therefore in the election of grace God might omit a part and justly leave them to their deserved doom, Mr. Watson says: “In whatever light the subject be viewed, no fault, in any right construction, can be chargeable upon the persons so punished, or, as we may rather say, destroyed, since punishment supposes a judicial proceeding, which this act cuts short. For either the reprobates are destroyed for a pure reason of sovereignty, without any reference to their sinfulness, and thus all criminality is left out of the consideration; or they are destroyed for the sin of Adam, to which they were never consenting, or for personal faults resulting from a corruption of nature which they brought into the world with them, and which God wills not to correct, and they have no power to correct themselves. Every received notion of justice is thus violated.”^[902] That this passage is openly contradictory to the doctrine of original sin maintained by Watson is manifest; yet it is thoroughly Arminian and presents views to which every Arminian must come in maintaining the ruling principles of his own system against the opposing tenets of Calvinism.

^[902]Theological Institutes, vol. ii, p. 342. In the way of further illustration we may instance the case of Fletcher. In moral support of his doctrine of original sin he cites from the Homily on the Nativity: “Thus, in Adam, all men became universally mortal, having in themselves nothing but everlasting damnation of body and soul.” There is nothing in the citation which is not in his own doctrine. Yet as an Arminian he very naturally, and very properly as well, appends a note: “Prejudiced persons, who, instead of considering the entire system of truth, run away with a part detached from the whole, will be offended here, as if our Church (of England) ‘damned every body.’ But the candid reader will easily observe that, instead of dooming any one to destruction, she only declares that the Saviour finds all men in a state of condemnation and misery, where they would eternally remain were it not for the compassionate equity of our gracious God, which does not permit him to sentence to a consciousness of eternal torment any one of his creatures for a sin of which they never were personally guilty, and of which, consequently, they can never have any consciousness.”^[903] Yet a common amenability to the penalty of eternal death on account of the sin of Adam is in the doctrine of original sin which Fletcher maintains; in the Homily on the Nativity from which he cites in its moral support; and in the passage just now cited from himself. But in this same passage such common amenability is really denied, and denied on the ground of the divine equity; for equity is still equity, though qualified as compassionate. That the divine equity could not permit the eternal punishment of any one simply on the ground of so alien a sin as Adam’s, must mean that such a doom would be unjust. But if the infliction of such a penalty would be unjust, there could be no just amenability to its infliction, and, therefore, no amenability at all. Thus there is doctrinal confusion and contradiction; a very sure result in any case where it is attempted to carry the Augustinian doctrine of native demerit into the Arminian system.

^[903]Works, vol. iii, p. 256.