A consistent scheme can be constructed upon either view of the Adamic union by itself, but not upon both in combination.' This is evinced by the fact that the tendency on the part of the advocates of representation has been to minimize natural union, in the combination. The latest and one of the ablest of its defenders, the elder Hodge, founds imputation solely on representation. See p. 45. It is important to observe that the earlier advocates of the combination, such as Turrettin for example, asserted that Adam's sin is imputed both as culpa and reatus poenae. Some of the later advocates assert that it is imputed only as reatus poenae; only as obligation to suffer the penalty of eternal death. These four ways of handling the doctrine of Adam's sin fall, generally, into the Augustino-Calvinistic anthropology, though some of them have a closer and more self-consistent conformity to it than others. All four assert that penal evil befalls the posterity on account of Adam's transgression, and that this penal evil is physical and spiritual death. This differentiates them from all theories which deny these two points. "Any man who holds that there is such an ascription of the sin of Adam to his posterity, as to be the ground of their bearing the punishment of that sin, holds the doctrine of imputation; whether he undertakes to justify this imputation merely on the ground that we are the children of Adam, or on the principle of representation, or of scientia media; or whether he chooses to philosophize 1 Hodge notices the contrariety of the two views. "If we reconcile the condemnation of men on account of the sin of Adam, on the ground that he was our representative, or that he sustained the relation which all parents bear to their children, we renounce the ground of a realistic union. If the latter theory be true, then Adam's sin was our act as truly as it was his. If we adopt the representative theory, his act was not our act in any other sense than that in which a representative acts for his constituents." Theology, II. 164. "A union of representation is not a union of identity. If Adam and his race were one and the same, he was not their representative, for a thing cannot represent itself. The two ideas are inconsistent. Where the one is asserted, the other is denied." Princeton Essays, I. 138. on the nature of unity until he confounds all notions of personal identity, as President Edwards appears to have done." Princeton Essays, I. 139. 5. A fifth method is that of the ancient Semi-Pelagian, and the modern Arminian. The doctrine of original sin is received as a truth of revelation, and an explanation is attempted by the theory of representative union. Adam acted as an individual for the individuals of his posterity. The latter are not guilty of his first sin, either in the sense of culpability or of obligation to punishment, but are exposed on account of it to certain non-penal evils; principally physical suffering and death. They do not either deserve or incur spiritual and eternal death on account of it. This results only from actual transgression, not from Adam's sin. The doctrine of the unity of Adam and his posterity, in the commission of the first sin and the fall from God, is of the utmost importance in anthropology. Without it, it is impossible to maintain the justice of God in the punishment of inherited sin. For it is evident, that an individual person cannot be morally different from the species to which he belongs. He cannot be holy, if his race is sinful. No individual can rise above his species, and exhibit a character and conduct radically different from theirs. Consequently, in order to establish the responsibility and guilt of the individual in respect to the origin of sin, a foothold must be found for him in the being and agency of the race to which he belongs. He must exist in, and act with his species. This foothold is furnished in the Biblical doctrine of a primary existence, and a primary act of the common human nature in Adam, of which the secondary individual existence, and the secondary individual character and acts are the manifestation. Accordingly, all schools of evangelical anthropology have held on upon St. Paul's representation of the Adamic connection, however differently they may have explained it. No one of them has adopted the Pelagian VOL. II.-2 dogma of pure individualism, and absolute isolation from Adam. In contending that the human species was a complete whole, and an objective reality, in the first parents, traducianism obtains a foundation for that community of action whereby a common sinful character was originated by a single voluntary act of apostasy, the consequences of which appear in the historical series of individuals who are propagated parts of the species. The sinful disposition of an individual is the evil inclination of his will; this evil inclination comes along in and with his will; and his will comes from Adam by ordinary descent. The perplexity into which a devout and thoughtful mind is thrown, which resolutely holds on upon the Augustinian position that inherited sin is damning and brings eternal death, while not holding on upon the co-ordinate Augustinian position of a primary existence and act of the species in Adam, is seen in the following extract from Pascal. "How astonishing is the fact, that the mystery, the most profound of all in the whole circle of our experience, namely, the transmission of original sin, is that of which from ourselves we can gain no knowledge. It is not to be doubted that there is nothing more revolting to our reason, than to maintain that the first man's sin has entailed guilt upon those whose remoteness from the original source seems to render them incapable of its participation. Such transmission appears to us not only impossible, but even unjust. For what can be more opposed to the laws of man's poor justice, than eternally to condemn an infant incapable of free will, for a sin in which he had so little share that it was committed six thousand years before he came into existence. Nothing, assuredly, is more repugnant to us than this doctrine; yet, without this mystery, of all the most incomprehensible, we are incomprehensible to ourselves. Through this abyss it is, that the whole tangled thread of our moral condition takes its mazy and devious way; and man is actually more inconceivable apart from this mystery, than the mystery itself is inconceivable by man." Thoughts: Greatness and Misery of Man. There are difficulties attending either theory of the origin of man, but fewer connected with traducianism than with creationism. If the mystery of a complete existence in Adam on both the psychical and physical side is accepted, the difficulties connected with the imputation of the first sin and the propagation of corruption are relieved. As Turrettin says, "there is no doubt that by this theory all the difficulty seems to be removed." It is only the first step that costs. Adopting a revealed mystery in the start, the mystery in this instance, as in all the other instances of revealed mysteries, throws a flood of light, and makes all things plain. There are three principal supports of Traducianism. 1. Scripture. 2. Systematic Theology. 3. Physiology. 1. The preponderance of the Biblical representations favors it. The Bible teaches that man is a species, and the idea of a species implies the propagation of the entire individual out of it. Individuals, generally, are not propagated in parts, but as wholes. In Gen. 1: 26, 27, the man and the woman together are denominated "man." In these two verses, as in the remainder of the first chapter, the Hebrew Dis not a proper name. It does not denote the masculine individual Adam alone, but the two individuals, Adam and Eve, together. Adam, here, is the name of the human pair, or species. It is not until the second chapter of Genesis, that the word is used as a proper name, to denote the masculine, and to exclude the feminine. "God said, Let us make man (7) in our image, and let them have dominion. So God created man (7) in his own image; in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them," Gen. 1: 26, 27. Compare Gen. 5: 2, where the same usage occurs. In employing the singular pronoun "him," the writer still has both individuals in his mind, as is evinced by the change of "him" to "them." Eve is in cluded, when it is said that God created "man" in his own image. In such connections Adam = Adam and Eve. The term is specific, not individual. Augustine (City of God, XV. xvii.) thus notices the specific use of the word "man." "Enos () signifies 'man' not as Adam does, which also signifies man, but is used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman; as it is written, male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam,' (Gen. 5:2), leaving no room to doubt that though the woman was distinctively called Eve, yet the name Adam, meaning man, was common to both. But Enos means man in so restricted a sense, that Hebrew linguists tell us it cannot be applied to woman."1 The same usage is found in the New Testament. In Rom. 7: 1, St. Paul asks, "Know ye not, brethren, how that the law hath dominion over the man (τοῦ ἀνθρώπου) as long as he liveth?" The law spoken of is that of marriage, to which the wife equally with the husband is subject, both of whom are here denominated "the man." When, in verse 2, the apostle wishes to individualize, and distinguish the husband from the wife, he designates him not by av páros, but by avýp. When St. Paul asserts (1 Cor. 15: 21) that "by man came death," he means both Adam and Eve, whom in the next clause he denominates Tò 'Adàμ. Again, our Lord is denominated the Son of man (ävIρáπov), although only the woman was concerned in his human origin, showing that woman is "man." When Christ (Matt. 12:12) asks: "How much then is a man better than a sheep?" he includes both sexes. When St. Paul addresses a letter to the "saints and faithful brethren which are at Colosse," Coloss. 1:2; and St. John (1 John 3:15) asserts. that "whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer;" they With this statement, Gesenius does not agree. He says (sub voce) that is rarely put for the singular; is more commonly collective for the whole race. Job 7:17; 15:14; Ps. 8:5. It is the same as TN, but only in poetic style." |