© 2011 by Ken Hamrick. All rights reserved.
Last Significant Edit: Dec. 15, 2011 20:04 est
[45,368 words]
[This paper is currently undergoing expansion and revision, and is not yet finalized or complete.]
CONTENTS:
I. THE HISTORICAL DECLINE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBSTANTIAL REALITY
A. Definition of Substantial Reality
B. Historical Overview
1. Arguments from Scripture
2. Arguments from the “Law of Creation”
3. Arguments from Reason
4. The Common Errors of Traducianists
5. The Nature of the Union in Adam
1. The State of Adam as Created
2. The Propagation of Sin
3. The Covenant of Nature
4. The Imputation of Adam’s Sin
A. The Parallels of Spiritual Propagation
B. The Nature of the Union in Christ
C. Justification
D. Atonement
1. The Definition of Atonement and the Necessity of Faith
2. The One-for-One Nature of Substitution
3. Reconciled by the Cross, not at the Cross
4. The General Purchase of a Particular Redemption
5. The Blood of the New Covenant
6. The Cross as Salvation for Sinners
7. The Cross within the Christian
CONCLUSION
This is a refutation of a paradigm—the key to which is found in the origin of the soul and affects the whole parallel of Adam and Christ. The Biblical realism that was found in Augustine, and brought back at the Reformation, was gradually eroded and replaced by nominalistic federalism (or, representationism), which is prevalent today. The goal of this dissertation is to establish the superiority of Biblical realism over the representationist paradigm, as it is applied to both the union in Adam and the union in Christ; as well as to present the profound developments in soteriology that are realized by a return to Biblical realism.
Rather than addressing the representationism only in its modern form, we will also engage it at a pivotal point in its development, as found in the arguments of Francis Turretin, in his seventeenth-century work, Institutes of Elenctic Theology1. Since Turretin is the midway point between the old-school view of a participative union in Adam and the later view of Charles Hodge (which has become the common view)70, then he is an ideal subject for such a critique. His inconsistent reliance on both reality and arbitrary representation, when brought into the light of day, lays bare the weaknesses of the later view.
Turretin’s errors paved the way for the continuing decline of the significance of reality in theology in the centuries that followed. The seeds of this decline that were planted long before (by which the long-held participative union in Adam was eventually replaced with a merely representative one), were watered by Turretin and brought to full bloom by Hodge. Such a denial of the substance of reality in our union with Adam has permeated all of theology, and its results over the last century are sadly evident.
We cannot fully grasp the reality of our spiritual union with Christ until we acknowledge the reality of our spiritual union in Adam. Over the course of several centuries, the importance of reality became eclipsed by the importance of position. The reality of Christ within us, and the expectation of His transforming power, are now dimmed in the shadow of a hollow emphasis on justification by faith. We drink large quantities of the milk of how God views us, but we know little of the meat of how God is in us—and far too many of us think that the only important element of our faith is how we view God. The importance of reality has been all but lost. To regain the reality, the Church must retrace her steps, and revisit the doctrine of the union in Adam. If reality is to be put back into faith, it must be put back into theology. This paper is a small step in that direction.
Though Turretin refers to the “soul,” it is in a dichotomistic way that is interchangeable with “spirit.” Early tradition used the term, “soul,” almost exclusively to refer to the immaterial component of a man, reserving the term, “spirit,” for the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this was to avoid confusion between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit, since the Bible does use “spirit” as well as “soul” when referring to man’s immaterial component or nature (the inner man as opposed to the outer man). However, the term, “soul,” has added rather than lessened the confusion, obscuring the parallel between spiritual union in Adam and spiritual union in Christ. Both words are used interchangeably throughout this paper.
A. Definition of Substantial Reality
One question encompasses the difference between realists and representationists (in general), and goes to the heart of the matter. It is the question of the importance of substantial reality to God, and its necessity to justice. This is not always shown in stark contrast, due to the inconsistencies of adherents. However, as we clear away the smoke of hidden contradiction and misappropriated terms, this question will be seen as definitive.
By substantial reality, I mean, simply, that reality exists even in the absence of any thoughts regarding it. All created things of substance exist within this reality, including spiritual beings, and this existence is substantial and not mere imaginative thought. “All that we see or seem” is not a mere “dream within a dream”3—dreams, imaginations, and thoughts are not substantial reality. An important distinction to be made, however, is that dreams, imaginations, and thoughts do occur within substantial reality—but they do not create or compose reality. To imagine something is an event within reality, but what is imagined is not itself reality. Thinking—using one’s mind—is an act within reality, and men are accountable even for the thoughts we choose to think. As Jesus taught (Matt. 5: 28), a man who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her in his heart. In this case, the adultery did not happen within substantial reality, but only in the man’s mind; nevertheless, the man made a moral choice within substantial reality, and so he is guilty. But notice that the woman with whom he committed adultery is not made guilty, and herein lies the distinction: to imagine is an act within substantial reality, but what is imagined is not part of substantial reality. The man is guilty of committing adultery of the heart, but he is not guilty of committing adultery of the body; therefore, while the eternal penalty may be the same, his act is not grounds for divorce. Any thinker may bring guilt on himself by thinking what he should not, but no thinker can bring guilt on others merely by thinking.
As believers in Christ, our foundation for knowledge is the Word of God (affirmed with certainty by the witness of the Holy Spirit), which on every page presupposes a substantial reality. Therefore, there is no need to address the many misguided philosophers who have sought to undermine, question, obscure, and deny substantial reality. (They will all stand before the judgment seat of God and answer for the deeds they did within the same reality that they doubted or denied). Our purpose, rather, is to address those who do acknowledge substantial reality and yet deny the need for imputation to be grounded in that reality.
There are certain things about God, reality and justice that seem to have been forgotten. God is not disconnected from substantial reality: truth corresponds to reality, and God does not lie but is always a God of truth. If a man is to be condemned and sent to hell within substantial reality, and not merely seen as in hell within the mind of God, then the crime for which he is sent there ought to be one that he has committed in reality and not one of which he is guilty only within the mind of God. Identification or representation that is merely of the mind, such as federal representation (in its usual, putative form), cannot be accurately called “real.” Reality exists even in the absence of any thoughts regarding it; whereas, federal representation is claimed to exist even in the absence of any reality regarding it. Traducianism is the most Biblical way to address this (at the point of the union in Adam), and acknowledge the rightful place of reality in theology, because it acknowledges the reality of mankind’s union in Adam.
God works through substantial reality, and not merely through recategorizing people in His mind. God did more than merely decide as an afterthought to creation to look at Adam as if he represented his descendants. Rather, God planned ahead and created Adam in such a way that his representation was built into his nature, such that human propagation was spiritual as well as physical, giving all his descendants a spiritual interest in his actions. Instead of looking at Adam’s descendants as if they had sinned Adam’s sin, God designed Adam in such a way that his sin actually was the sin of all men, who were spiritually present in Adam. God works through reality, rather than merely shuffling categories in His mind in contradiction to substantial reality. The difference is that the former is required for real justice, while the latter displays not justice but sovereignty clothed in the mere name of justice.
Building on this foundation of a real union in Adam will enable us to reach new heights in understanding what a real union in Christ entails.
“The earliest post-apostolic exposition of the doctrine of our relation to the sin of Adam occurs in the works of Tertullian. This writer, having attained to a great age, died about the year 220; so that his career must have commenced within some fifty years of the death of the apostle John.”4 Of the early “fathers,” Tertullian was a prolific and learned apologist. He was the first to expound the doctrine of the Trinity, and coined the term (trinitas, in Latin). He was the first to teach this doctrine of traducianism, that the soul of the child is propagated from the parents. But he does not offer it as a theory—nor does he teach it as unique to his understanding—but rather, insists upon it as part of the foundation of the common faith. Samuel Baird describes his doctrine:
In the doctrine thus stated by Tertullian, and his kindred theory as to the origin of the soul, he seems truly to represent the theology of his age. We are aware that it is sometimes asserted that his doctrine was peculiar to himself, and not commonly held by the orthodox of his time. But we have failed to find a trace of evidence in support of the assertion. In his discussions, he assumes the position of an expounder and defender of the common faith on the subject, against the theories of philosophers and naturalists. He opposes the doctrine of Plato, as affording nourishment to every class of heretics, and in all his discussions assumes the acquiescence of all Christians. Proposing to prove the generative origin of the soul, he says that it is immaterial from what quarter the question arises, “whether from philosophers, heretics, or the ignorant populace. It is of no importance, to the professors of the truth, who its enemies are, especially since, with such audacity, they deny the soul to be conceived in the womb, and assert it to be inserted from without into the body at the instant of birth.” Entering upon the argument,—after a few sentences addressed to the Platonic philosophers, he turns to his brethren:—“I will pause in the argument, that what I answer to philosophers and naturalists I may prove to the Christian. For yourself, my brother, build your faith upon the foundation,” etc. He sketches a rapid argument from the Scriptures, from which he derives the result that “from one man have flowed the souls of all, nature obeying the original decree, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply;’ for, in the very preface to the creation of the first man, his entire posterity is spoken of in the plural—‘Let us make man, and let them have dominion.’” He then returns to the doctrines of the various schools of Greek philosophy, and engages in an extended discussion, at the close of which he concludes, that, “in view of the ambitious theories of philosophers and heretics, and the stupid doctrine of Plato, we have proved the soul to be generated in and of man himself, and that there was, from the beginning, one seed of it, as also of the flesh of the whole race.” There seems to be no reason to doubt that this was the common doctrine of the church in that age.5
According to William Shedd, traducianism “continued to gain ground in the North-African, and in the Western European Church, by reason of its affinity with that particular mode of stating the doctrine of sin which prevailed in these churches. Jerome remarks that in his day it was adopted by [most of the Westerns].”6 Baird cites both Hilary of Poitiers and Ambrose of Milan as strong adherents of traducianism.
Hilary became bishop of Poictiers, in France, about the year 350. He was one of the most eminent men of the age, and stood conspicuous in his labours against Arian heresy. In his works the doctrine of the apostasy is identical with that of Tertullian. In his commentary upon Matthew 18: 12 he says, “By the one sheep, man is to be understood, and… under the figure of one man is to be recognised the whole human species; for in the apostasy of the one Adam the entire race of man apostatized.”…
Similar is the doctrine of Ambrose, bishop of Milan from 374 to 397:—“He, the first sinner of our race, (and, oh that he had been the only one!) before he had sinned, did not perceive himself to be naked, but after he had sinned he saw himself to be so; and therefore thought to cover himself with fig-leaves, because he found himself to be naked. He therefore made himself naked when he made himself guilty of crime. In him the whole human condition… was made bare,—obnoxious, by succession of nature, not only to crime, but also to misery.” Again,—“Our David confesses himself to have sinned, not in himself alone, but in the first man, when the divine command was transgressed. . . . Truly, we all have sinned in the first man, and, through the succession of nature, the succession of crime also is transfused from the one into all. Against whom, then, have I sinned? Against the Father, or the Son? Truly, against him to whom I was under obligation for that which I sinned in not fulfilling. The command is given to man that he should eat of all that was in the garden, but should not touch the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam is in each of us. In him the human condition fell, because sin has passed through the one into all. I see the sum of my debt. I see what an amount of crime I have contracted, whilst I taste the forbidden and interdicted fruit. I owe compensation for the crime which I have done since the obligation due to heavenly authority could not preserve an untarnished faith.” Again, in his commentary on Romans 5: 12, Ambrose says, “It is manifest that in Adam, as in mass, all sinned. For he, being corrupt through sin, begat all his offspring under sin. By him, therefore, we all are sinners, because we all are of him.”7
In the Eastern Church, it had few followers, Gregory of Nyssa and Anastasius Sinaita being the only adherents.
Shedd continues with the most notable of traducianists, Augustine:
But the theologian who contributed most to the currency and establishment of Traducianism was Augustine. And yet this thinker, usually so explicit and decided, even upon speculative points, nowhere in his works formally adopts the theory itself. In his Opus imperfectum (IV. 104) he replies to Julian: “You may blame, if you will, my hesitation because I do not venture to affirm or deny that of which I am ignorant; you may say what you please concerning the profound obscurity of this subject; nevertheless let this doctrine be fixed and unshaken that the guilt of that one man is the death of all, and that in him all died.” Yet Augustine’s entire speculation upon the origin and nature of sin is indirectly, and by implication, an earnest defence of the Traducian theory. His anthropology, as we shall see when it comes up for examination, is both illogical and inconceivable without it. The transmission of sin, to which Augustine held, logically involves, as Tertullian had perceived before him, the transmission of the sinning soul; and this implies the Adamic existence and unity.8
In the great controversy between Augustine and Pelagius, traducianism was a foundational issue. Pelagius denied the idea as “insane,” insisting that all souls are created immediately and in the same condition as Adam’s at the moment of his creation. Based on this creationism, he denied any just ground for imputing Adam’s sin or any effect thereof to the souls of the posterity. The leading points of Augustine’s response are set out by Baird:
1. The whole human nature was created holy in the person of Adam.
2. It was so constituted, in its creation, that any act of sin would bind the nature which caused it in the bondage of depravity, as a natural necessity resulting from the sin. This necessary bondage he designates as the first element in the punishment of sin.
3. Adam was endowed with the generative faculty, by means of which his seed, who were one in him, should receive personal existence, and a several part in the common nature.
4. The transgression of Adam induced the subjection of the whole nature to the bondage of the depravity thus embraced; which, as it is not caused by any immediate divine interposition, but is the native and proper effect of the sin, is, therefore, not only a punishment of the sin, but an element of the criminality which thenceforth attaches to man’s nature.
5. As each of the posterity of Adam receives existence, he with his birth acquires a part in the criminality of the first sin, and in the depravity so induced.
6. The sin and depravity thus arising involve Adam and all his posterity in the penalty of all earthly calamities, and eternal death; from which nothing but the redemption of Christ can save.
7. The bondage of sin is such that, as there is no escaping its curse but by the blood of Christ, so there is no freedom from its power but by the transforming Spirit of God.9
Augustine held that Adam was endowed with a propagative nature, such that his descendants are propagated in their entire nature, and thus have an ownership in Adam’s guilt and sin, having had a participation of nature in the common origin of the first man. He staunchly held to these principles, his caution in adopting an official position on traducianism notwithstanding. The Church held to Augustine’s conclusions, but gradually abandoned the principles behind those conclusions, effectively moving the house of Augustine off its foundation and onto the sand of the Pelagians. Baird describes the first steps away from this underlying principle of Augustine:
…Nominally, the theology of Augustine was universally received by the church of Rome. But, in reality, the growing corruption of that church produced some essential changes in this as well as the other doctrines of religion. About the beginning of the twelfth century, the Nominal philosophy, introduced by Rosceline and extensively adopted, combined with other causes to give a powerful impulse to Pelagian tendencies. According to the philosophy which prevailed prior to the rise of this sect, such universal conceptions as those of species, genera, and nature have, as their ground, some kind of objective realities. They are not the mere result of thought, but have in some proper sense, a real existence, and lie, as essences, at the base of the existence of all individuals and particulars. From the Stoical philosophy, Rosceline introduced the opposite doctrine,—that only individuals have any real existence. General conceptions are the mere result of logical combinations of thought. They are but abstractions, which have no objective significance. They are mere names, and not things. Hence the designation of Nominalists, by which this sect of philosophers is distinguished. In Rosceline himself the skeptical tendency of the Nominal theory developed itself in questions and controversies respecting the personality of the Three who subsist in the divine Essence, and the nature of that Essence,—which do not fall within our present inquiry. His most eminent disciple, Abelard, who was also the great expositor of the new philosophy, illustrates, in his writings, its bearing upon the subject of original sin. Rejecting the Augustinian doctrine of a universal human nature which was in the first man, he was constrained to reject with it the whole doctrine of original sin peculiar to that system. Hence, he expounds Romans 5:12 as meaning no more than that the sin of Adam involves his children in the punishment, but not in the guilt; and by the word, sin, understands that, not the crime, but the penalty, is, by metonymy, designated…10
This philosophy of nominalism, when applied to theology, is antithetical to the importance of substantial reality. As early as Abelard, we see nominalism’s wedge being driven between the giving of the penalty and the earning of the penalty. Baird continues:
Other causes combined with the Nominal philosophy to corrupt the doctrines concerning man’s nature and original sin. We have seen that Augustine warns his readers, that in respect to the origin of the soul they should either be content to leave the question undiscussed, or adopt the theory of natural propagation, as alone consistent with the scriptural doctrine of our relation to Adam. The schoolmen, however, accepted neither branch of the alternative of Augustine, but, on the contrary, adopted the theory of immediate creation; and the subtleties of the scholastic dialectics were employed in the construction of a system in harmony with this theory, and yet maintaining the semblance of consistency with the Augustinian teachings on the subject of original sin…11
As the philosophy of nominalism was gradually incorporated into the theology of the Church, reality became less and less important. But the rise of nominalism did not immediately overthrow the old paradigm. Shedd describes the anthropological influences at the time of the Reformation:
In the Middle Ages, the theory of Creationism prevailed over the rival theory. Traducianism fell into disrepute with the Schoolmen, for two reasons: 1. Because they regarded it as conflicting with the doctrine of the soul’s immortality, and as materializing in its influence. 2. Because, rejecting as most of them did, the anthropology of Augustine, and adopting the Greek anthropology, they had less motive than Augustine had, for favoring the theory of the soul’s traduction. The revival of the Augustinian anthropology at the Reformation naturally led to the re-appearance of the Traducian theory. The symbols of both the Lutheran and the Calvinistic divisions, so far as they make any speculative statement at all upon the subject, generally enunciate, or at least logically involve, the doctrine of the Adamic unity in respect to both soul and body. But as we have seen Augustine himself hesitating to take a decided position respecting the origin of the individual soul, it is not strange that minds in the Protestant Church that were agreed upon the doctrine of original sin, should differ upon this metaphysical question. Advocates of both Traducianism and Creationism are to be found among the early Protestant divines.12
Of the early Protestant divines, traducianism was mostly held by the Lutherans. Though Calvin and those who followed him tended to deny traducianism, the earlier Calvinists were consistently inconsistent—almost as a rule, they saw the soul of a child as an immediate creation of God, while simultaneously seeing the justification of adamic imputation as grounded in the reality of a kind of metaphysical union in and propagation out of Adam, which they called (human) “nature.” In their view, it is this nature that sinned in Adam, and this nature in which the guilt inheres, and this nature that is propagated to us.13 Though they were creationists as to the origin of the soul, they did not view this propagated nature as merely physical—guilt does not inhere in the body but the soul. Clearly, they were inconsistent.
Human nature is of two parts, the material and the immaterial. Sin and guilt can only be attributed to the latter—to attribute these to the former would be Gnostic error. These early Calvinists, conflicted by the certainty of propagated sin and the perceived need to deny the propagation of the soul, used the ambiguity of the term nature to avoid traducianism and still affirm that sin and guilt are propagated. They leaned on traducianism without explicitly embracing it. Shedd describes these “elder” Calvinists:
According to the elder Calvinism, as represented by Paraeus and those of his class, original sin propagated in every individual rests upon original sin inherent in every individual; original sin inherent in every individual rests upon original sin imputed to every individual; and original sin imputed to every individual rests upon original sin committed by all men as a common nature in Adam. On this scheme, the justice and propriety of each particular and of the whole are apparent. The first sin, which it must be remembered consisted of both an internal lust and an external act, of both an inclination and a volition, is justly imputed to the common nature because it was voluntarily committed by it, is justly inherent in the common nature because justly imputed, and is justly propagated with the common nature because justly inherent. This scheme if taken entire is ethically consistent. But if mutilated by the omission of one of more particulars, its ethical consistency is gone. To impute the first sin without prior participation in it is unjust. To make it inherent without prior imputation is unjust. To propagate it without prior inherence is unjust. The derangement of the scheme by omission has occurred in the later Calvinism… The advocate of representative imputation deranges it by imputing original sin as inherent, but not as committed, except in the deluding sense of nominal and putative commission…14
The elder Calvinists had a faulty understanding of the origin of the soul (most of them denied traducianism), but they still had a strong sense of the importance of reality to justice, and were not willing to give up the latter for the former. The prospect that God would impute sin to those who are not culpable was not found among them. They rightly saw penalty and the reality of culpability as inseparable. Robert Landis points out that Calvin himself saw the importance of that reality:
…Calvin, when referring to Pighius, Catharinus, and other Papal theologues, who contended that only the guilt of Adam’s personal sin was imputed to the race forensically, and thus became the cause of their inherent sin, remarks: “We are not condemned by imputation alone, as though the punishment of another’s sin were exacted of us; but we therefore endure its punishment because we also are guilty of the offense so far as this, that our nature, vitiated in him, is regarded as guilty of iniquity before God.”15
As time went on, and theologies were developed with ever-increasing nuance, this contradiction inherent in the view of Calvinists in general was slowly swept away in the direction of nominalism rather than in the direction of substantial reality.
Shedd designates Turretin as the midway point between elder and later Calvinism, vibrating between the two views and attempting to justify adamic imputation on both a federal headship arbitrarily assigned by God and on the natural union between parents and children. Of course, as a creationist, Turretin denied the immaterial substance of the parent-child union while simultaneously resting the justice of imputation on such a union. In this, he leaned on traducianism. Shedd:
It is evident that while this eminent theologian lays more stress upon representative union than upon natural, he does not think that it can stand alone. He supports the representation by the unity of nature. He does not venture to rest the imputation of an act of Adam that brought eternal death upon all his posterity as a penal consequence, solely upon a representation by Adam of an absent and nonexistent posterity. A mere and simple representative acts vicariously for those whom he represents; and to make the eternal damnation of a human soul depend upon vicarious sin contradicts the profound convictions of the human conscience. To impute Adam’s first sin to his posterity merely and only because Adam sinned as a representative in their room and place makes the imputation an arbitrary act of sovereignty, not a righteous judicial act which carries in it an intrinsic morality and justice. This, Turretin seems to have been unwilling to maintain; and therefore, in connection with representative union, he also asserted to some extent the old Augustinian doctrine of a union of nature and substance. Yet, adopting creationism as he did, this substantial union, in his system, could be only physical (“in a physical sense and in a seminal way”), not psychical. Turretin marks the transition from the elder to the later Calvinism, from the theory of the Adamic union to that of the Adamic representation. Both theories are found in his system and are found in conflict. He vibrates from one to the other in his discussion of the subject of imputation…
…While unwilling, with Augustine and the older Reformed anthropology, to rest the imputation of Adam’s sin wholly upon natural union, he feared to rest it wholly upon vicarious representation. He felt the pressure of the difficulties attending a specific or race-existence in Adam and sought to relieve them by combining with the doctrine of natural union that of representative union. In so doing, he attempts to combine iron with clay…16
Seventy years later, another nominalistic milestone is found in Jonathan Edwards. This theologian found a way to reconcile nominalism with reality by completely nominalizing reality itself. Edwards taught that God creates out of nothing the entire world, and does so at every moment. Therefore, nothing and no one has any real connection to what or who they were a moment ago, and any perceived continuous identity depends completely on the will of the One who continues to “constitute” it as such. If God wills to “constitute” mankind as in union with Adam, then it is so—even though no individual has a real union with himself from one moment to the next, much less a real union with Adam. In effect, Edwards claimed that God constitutes truth from falsehood. Baird describes how his doctrine contributed to the nominalistic theology:
There are probably few who would now be willing to adopt, in its abstract form, the theory of identity which is fundamental to the system of Edwards. But by many it is accepted in its application to the doctrine of original sin,—the very case for which it was invented. By them it is maintained that we are not, in any real sense, one with Adam; but, by a positive constitution, God has so ordered it that we are regarded and treated as one. And yet, with all, we are no more intrinsically one with him, nor chargeable with his crime, than we were before. We are only held liable to undergo punishment on account of it. That punishment consists in the privation of original righteousness, and the consequent depravation of the soul. How much more this view harmonizes with that of Abelard and the schoolmen than with the Reformed confessions a glance will demonstrate. How foreign to the latter, is manifest…17
A century beyond Edwards, when Charles Hodge was prominent, the importance of substantial reality had disappeared altogether18. Hodge was satisfied to ground the condemning imputation on nothing other than God’s designation of Adam as federal representative. Mankind was in union in Adam nowhere other than in God’s mind, and that was enough—no other union need be looked for.19 And that is where most of the Evangelical Church is today. Justice and truth have been nominalized—they have become real in name only. Baird reminds us of the importance of these ideas:
It is denied that we were natively in Adam, as a covenant head; and asserted that, by a sovereign act, which exerted no direct influence, either creative or modifying,—an act simply decretive or judicial,—we were instated in him. And the challenge may, perhaps, be made, whether any one will deny the infinite power of God. The matter involved, however, is not one of either sovereignty or power, but of truth. The theory, under another name, is the very same which Edwards vindicates, in his doctrine of identity. It is,—that the divine power is such that it can “make truth;”—that, although we were not really one with Adam, and God did not modify in the least the real state of the case, intrinsically,—yet can he, and did he, make us one with him. Thus does this invention attribute to God the office of calling into being a spectre so flimsy, that the very parties who assert its existence, profess to see through it, and declare it false; and, at the same time, so powerful as to drag down the entire race of man in utter ruin. After all the influence of the sovereign power, which is supposed to have made us one with Adam, it is at last denied that we are any more really one with him than we were before. In fact, this theory constitutes the fundamental element in a system of feigned issues and fictitious constructions, attributed to God;—a system which may be appropriate to human tribunals, but will find no place at the bar of truth. He who supposes that God’s dealings with his creatures are, in any case or manner, controlled by relations, or imagined relations, not in accordance with the intrinsic state of the case, as it is, in every respect,—not only denies that the judgments of God are according to truth, but involves himself in the further conclusion that the Almighty is without a moral nature at all. For, to imagine that he can look upon one as guilty, in a matter in which he is not guilty, or liable to be punished as a sinner, when in fact he is not a sinner, is to assume, that holiness is no more in harmony with God’s nature than sin,—truth no more pleasing to him than a lie.20
In any view of the union in Adam that sees the progeny as truly culpable for Adam’s sin, a shared essence in Adam is implied and required. To whatever degree that the “potential” essence of the progeny is held to be distinct from the personal essence of Adam, the responsibility for his sin is correspondingly removed from them. It was Adam alone, as a man, who sinned. If Adam’s sin was all men’s sin, then Adam is in every man, and thus, all men can be said to have been in Adam.
It is not my intention to construct anything new here, philosophically. Rather, the best course is to adhere to the facts as indicated in Scripture, such as the fact that human beings are propagated, and set out what necessarily follows from those facts, stripping away any philosophical excesses and inconsistencies–and there are many on both sides. While this method does leave some questions unanswered and open to objection, it is best to acknowledge the inscrutable mystery of the precise mechanics of spiritual propagation. Such a mystery is ultimately accepted by faith, based on the witness of the Spirit illuminating the Scriptures. It can be neither proved nor disproved through reason and philosophy alone. But as we shall see, that does not leave us entirely in the dark, either.
Unlike all the other creatures, man was made in the likeness and image of God. Yet, like all the other creatures, God created man as a propagative being—a being that could “multiply and fill the earth.”
Genesis 2:7-8 ESV
7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.
This is God’s supernatural creation of Adam. Here, we see how it was that God made Adam in His image. He breathed the breath of life into Adam, and Adam became a living soul. This is a startling picture of personal contact, completely unlike the creation of everything else. The breath of life can also be translated, “spirit [or, soul] of lives.”21 By breathing the breath of life into Adam, God was breathing the very spirit of Adam from out of God and into Adam. God created Adam’s spirit out of nothing and breathed it into him from out of Himself. Unlike all other creatures, who were strictly material like the waters, man was made to be like the Creator, whose Spirit hovered over those waters; and because man was a spiritual being, he was also a moral being.
Genesis 5:1-3 ESV
1This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.
God created man in His image. Here, the propagative nature of that image is revealed. “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.” How unexpected it is that Seth is said to have been begotten in the image and likeness of Adam, rather than in the image and likeness of God. The spirit that God had breathed into Adam—Adam’s spirit—was propagated to his son, Seth. Since Seth is the first mention in the genealogy, and the first begotten man whose birth is accompanied by such an explanation, his mention provides the pattern by which all men are begotten. Generation after countless generation, the spirit of the child comes from out of his father’s spirit, through all forefathers back to Adam—and back to that breath of life that God breathed into Adam. From father to son—purposely designed so that Christ could be born of a virgin and still be who He was rather than being the spiritual son of Mary.
Turretin, fifth topic, thirteenth question, section XIV (T5, Q13, §XIV) :
Adam can be said to have begotten man after his own image, although he did not produce the soul. The cause of the similitude is not the propagation of the soul, but the production of bodies of the same temperament with the parents. For from the different temperament and humors of the body, different propensities and affections are also born in our souls.
Nothing from the text indicates that the word, image, has a different meaning when it’s God’s image than when it’s Adam’s image. The image of God in Adam was not Adam’s body or “temperament and humors of the body,” but Adam’s spirit, and the moral nature of that spirit; so it follows that Adam’s image in Seth is also spiritual, not physical. Turretin seems to contradict this earlier statement when addressing the propagation of depravity (T9, Q10, §VIII):
Second, the same thing is proved [there is... inherent depravity (called original sin) propagated from Adam to all his posterity springing from him by natural generation] from Gen 5:3 where Adam is said to have begotten Seth “after his image” (i.e., a corrupt one begat the same). Now he could not be corrupted in generation in any other way than by contracting original corruption. Here we must notice the antithesis between the image of God (after which Adam was formed, spoken of in Gen. 5:1) and the image of Adam (after which Seth was formed). As therefore the former morally designated both wisdom of mind and holiness of will, so from the opposition the image of Adam ought to denote the inherent and hereditary corruption of his mind as well as of his will… In no other way ought the image (after which Adam begat his children) to be understood than in that in which it is taken when man is said to have been made after the image of God, not physically, but morally…
This seeming contradiction reveals the necessary tendency of creationists to see the body as the medium of transmission of moral corruption from parent to child. However, as we will address in section II.B.2., morality has its seat in the soul, not the body. Compare what Samuel Baird says of this passage, which he holds to have “a distinct and unequivocal statement as to the origin of the soul of Seth”:
…“Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his image.” The begetting is in terms predicated of that in which was the image. If Adam’s whole image, corporeal and spiritual, was reproduced in Seth, it follows that Seth, in his entire being, was begotten by Adam. This conclusion no ingenuity can evade. But the testimony is yet more explicit than this. It points with emphasis to the image of God in which Adam was created; and, with a mournful significance, contrasts that of Seth with it. “In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;” “and Adam begat a son in his own likeness.” No one will pretend that Adam’s likeness to God was any thing short of a moral likeness dwelling in his soul. It is then Seth’s moral likeness to Adam that is here especially meant; and, the begetting being expressly predicated of that in which the likeness lay, the conclusion is unavoidable, that, if Seth was begotten at all, his soul proceeded from his parents, as well as his body. 22
Seth was begotten in the image of his father, Adam. Since that image was spiritual, it was propagated to Seth in the same moral condition as in Adam. Baird continues:
Says Job, “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.”—Job 14: 4. The sentiment is repeated by Eliphaz, and re-affirmed by Bildad. “What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?”—Job 15: 14. “How can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?”—Job 25: 4. We are not unaware that these, and other passages which follow, are supposed to be susceptible of such interpretation as avoids the conclusion which we deduce. But it is the duty of the candid student of the word of God to inquire,—not how far the Bible may be forced to conform to the preconceived deductions of our philosophy,—but, what is the unconstrained significance of its language. We, therefore, bring these passages before the reader, and ask him to consider to what conclusion they obviously lead. These patriarchs, unanimously, and with the emphasis of the interrogatory form, assert the doctrine that like begets like. They predicate uncleanness and sin of man. That the soul is here implicated, no one will question. Of this defilement, it is further asserted, that it is consequent upon the fact of our origin from a defiled source. In other words, they declare the unholy child to derive,—not its defilement only, but that which is defiled,—its moral being,—from its apostate parents. The same remarks apply to the language of David:—“Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.”—Psalm 51: 5.23
Creationists overlook the law of propagation, which is everywhere evident, and should be obvious from the Scripture. The natural sense of the Genesis account is that God had made man, and every other creature, as propagative beings, able to multiply after their own kind. Like begets like, as is the way of all living creatures from amoeba to man, and God no longer creates them supernaturally out of nothing. This principle and fact of propagation is such a part of our thinking that we miss the significance. God created at the beginning, but He designed into His creatures the abilities and natures necessary to propagate each species and “fill the earth” without any further supernatural creation by God. This is not to say that God withdraws from His creation and remains aloof, but it simply tells us that God’s original creating was all that was necessary to accomplish His creative purposes. Robert Culver points out the plain reading of the Genesis account.
Supported by the natural sense of the Genesis narrative. The creation of mankind climaxes a narrative wherein every living thing in the waters was to reproduce ‘after their kind.’ In each case no one doubts the whole living creature in each offspring was to be completely the procreated offspring of its parents. Creation first of man, male, then of man, female, comes precisely at the climax of that movement of the narrative, with the command to ‘be fruitful and multiply.’ It would be assumed by anyone who reads on that the same would be the case, notice to the contrary lacking. The same fully ‘after their kind’ in every respect would be assumed to be the case when in obedience to the command to be fruitful, it is said ‘And [connecting with previous narrative] Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain’ (Gen. 4:1 KJV). It is plain Eve was aware that God was the effecting power of the procreation (mediate creation), for she said, ‘I have gotten a man from the LORD’ (KJV). Genesis 5:1-3 carries the plain fact further when it says that God created man (generic, adham) ‘in the likeness of God,’ and that they, male and female, were called man (adham, generic man), and then that ‘When Adam had lived for 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness.’ Should we suppose that what Adam and Eve brought forth was half created de novo by God, utterly apart from their own procreative powers implanted in the first place by their Creator, God? I think not.24
There is in Scripture no separate origin for the spirit and the body, unless we go looking for that with the presupposition that there is. In the beginning, God supernaturally created both Adam’s body and his spirit. Scripture establishes that man, originally created by God, is thereafter a propagative being—and this principle of propagation is “borne out” in proven experience and universally understood. Nothing further is needed to justify the inference that man is propagated as a whole, in all his components. Adam’s spirit and body both came from God’s own creative hand; and since man was thereafter propagative, what justification would we have to introduce a distinction of origins, insisting that only the body is propagated—especially when the Scripture makes no such distinction?
Turretin (T5, Q13, §IV):
[We endorse the creation of the soul]… from the testimony of Scripture, in which God is spoken of as the author and Creator of the soul in a peculiar manner distinct from the body: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Ecc. 12:7). Here a manifest difference is marked between the origin and the destruction of the body and the soul. The one is said to return to the dust (whence it was taken); the other, however, to return unto God (who gave it). Therefore since the body returns thither whence it had its origin, so also the soul. This is more clearly confirmed by the fact that God is said to “give the spirit” (which cannot be understood of the common giving by concourse with second causes). For he also gives the body itself no less than the soul because he is the first cause of both (nor would he well be said by antithesis [kat’antithesin] to have given the spirit). Rather this is understood concerning the proper and peculiar mode of origin (which does not belong to the body). Nor ought it to be said that this is to be referred to the first creation of Adam. The scope, the words and circumstances of the text prove that it treats of the ordinary birth and destruction of men. Accordingly their bodies return to the dust (i.e., to the earth) whence they were taken, while their spirits return unto God, the judge, who gave them (either for glory or for punishment).
Human flesh has not been made from the dust since God created the body of Adam. All other human flesh has been derived—propagated—from the flesh of Adam. When any man dies, his flesh returns to the dust from which it was ultimately taken at Adam’s creation. And it is with this same creation in mind, in which God breathed the spirit of lives into Adam, that the author refers to man’s spirit returning to the God who gave it. The body came from the dust when God formed Adam’s body from the dust, and the spirit came from Him when He breathed into Adam—and because these two things—body and spirit—are passed down through the generations to us, then the Bible here tells us that at physical death the body returns to the dust from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Augustine agrees:
…Nay, it rather favours those who think that all souls are derived from one; for they say that, as the dust returns to the earth as it was, and yet the body of which this is said returns not to the man from whom it was derived, but to the earth from which the first man was made, the spirit in like manner, though derived from the spirit of the first man, does not return to him but to the Lord, by whom it was given to our first parent.25
Turretin (T5, Q13, §V):
“The word of the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him” (Zech. 12:1). Whence a multiple argument is drawn for the creation against the birth of the soul (psychogonian). (1) He is said to form the spirit of man within him; therefore he ought to produce it immediately without the intervention of man. (2) The formation of the spirit is joined with the stretching out of the heavens and the founding of the earth, as of the same order and grade. Therefore since the former two are works of omnipotence, made immediately by God and without second causes, so the last ought to be also. Nor can this be referred to the mediate production of God because thus man would be admitted to a participation of causality, which the text does not allow (since it asserts the production of the soul as well as that of the heaven and earth to be peculiar to God). However, this is falsely restricted to the first production of man since it ought to be extended equally to all. Hence when it speaks of the production of the soul elsewhere, the Scripture does not use the singular (as if referring to the one soul of Adam), but the plural (Ps. 33:15; Is. 57:16). But man here is not taken individually for Adam, but specifically for any man.
When did these three great divine acts occur? Does God daily stretch forth the heavens? Does He continually lay the foundation of the earth? Undeniably, these first two acts occurred at creation—and yet all three are in the same tense, as happening together. Those who would see the first two acts as continual are reading into the text their assumptions regarding the third act.
Psalm 102:25 (ESV)
25 Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.Isaiah 48:13 (ESV)
13My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together.Zech. 12:1 (ESV)
The burden of the word of the LORD concerning Israel: Thus declares the LORD, who stretched out the heavens and founded the earth and formed the spirit of man within him:
Further, these acts are put forth as of the same magnitude. Forming the spirit within man is just as great a creative act as stretching forth the heavens and laying the foundation of the earth. But why would such a routine task, happening hundreds of times per day, be so great? The great creative act to which is here referred was the act of God breathing the spirit of lives into Adam. And that spirit formed within Adam has been propagated to all mankind, according to the command, “Be fruitful and multiply…” It is also a fact, overlooked by creationists, that this verse could validly be rendered, “…and forms the spirit of Adam within him,” since adam is the Hebrew word for man (cf. Hos. 6:7).
Addressing this verse, William Shedd points out that the verb, “formeth,” “favors the traduction of the soul,” because it means to fashion or form, as from existent material [like a potter forming the pot from clay], and does not necessarily mean to create out of nothing.26 Augustine also noted this as important:
Let it not be said to me that we ought to receive as supporting this opinion the words of Scripture in Zechariah, “He formeth the spirit of man within him,” and in the book of Psalms, “He formeth their hearts severally.” We must seek for the strongest and most indisputable proof, that we may not be compelled to believe that God is a judge who condemns any soul which has no fault. For to create signifies either as much or, probably, more than to form [fingere]; nevertheless it is written, “Create in me a clean heart, O God,” and yet it cannot be supposed that a soul here expresses a desire to be made before it has begun to exist. Therefore, as it is a soul already existing which is created by being renewed in righteousness, so it is a soul already existing which is formed by the moulding power of doctrine.27
Baird explains the flaw in looking to such passages for proof of God’s creation of the soul when so many more attribute the creation of the body, as well, to Him:
…the question is not whether God is the Creator; but whether in the creation of the soul his agency is immediate, and without the instrumentality of a second cause. Hence, quotations to prove God the soul’s creator, are entirely aside of the mark. Yet such are the texts above cited. They do not even seem to have any bearing on the real question… It is on all hands agreed, that the bodies of men derive their being through generation; and yet the Scriptures speak of the creative agency of God in this case, with a particularity and minuteness of detail, such as has no parallel in reference to the soul. One or two places will serve as an illustration of the language thus employed. Says the patriarch Job, “Thine hands have made me and fashioned me together round about; yet thou dost destroy me. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again? Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.”—Job 10: 8-11. Again, he says, in allusion to his servant, “Did not He that made me in the womb make him?”—Job 31: 15. Says the Psalmist, “Thou hast possessed my reins; thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”—Psalm 139: 13-16. It would be acknowledged preposterous to conclude, from these expressions, that the bodies of men are created immediately by God, without generation. Why, then, should such an interpretation be forced upon expressions in regard to the soul, which it cannot be pretended are more emphatic and unequivocal than these?28
If the passages that speak of God as the Maker of the soul are taken as proof that the soul is the immediate creation of God, then those passages that speak of God as the Maker of the body (which are more in number and greater in detail and emphasis) must be taken as proof that the body is also the immediate creation of God. Baird continues:
…it must be evident to any candid interpreter, that the scriptures which merely declare God to be the maker of the soul, are no more conclusive to the purpose for which they are usually cited on this subject, than would be the addition of those which speak with at least equal emphasis of the body, to prove that both body and soul are the immediate workmanship of God, and that the human species is not propagated by generation at all!29
Baird’s point is unanswerable.
Turretin (T5, Q13, §VI):
We have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” (Heb. 12:9). And Peter calls him in a peculiar manner a “faithful Creator of souls” (I Pet. 4:19). In Num. 16:22, God is called ‘the God of the spirits of all flesh.’ So too Is. 57:16: “For I will not contend forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit should fail before me, and the souls which I have made.” Now why should God be called “the Father of spirits” in contradistinction to “the fathers of the flesh” unless the origin of each was different? And yet if souls are propagated, the parents of the body and the soul should be the same. Indeed “the flesh” here cannot signify the old man or inborn corruption because then it would not be opposed to spirits (pneuniasi) in the plural, but to spirit (pneumati) in the singular. Rather it designates the body, and they are called “fathers of the flesh” who generate the flesh. So the word “spirit” ought not to be referred to spiritual gifts (which are not treated of here), but to the other part of man opposed to the body. Nor can the omission of the pronoun hamon (with respect to the flesh) be a hindrance because it is to be repeated apo koinou (since he speaks about the same according to the principles and origin of the diverse parts). Hence in Num. 16:22, he is called “the father of the spirits of all flesh” (i.e., of all men). Again he cannot be called “the Father of spirits” mediately, as he is called “the father of the rain” (Job 38:28) because he is its author (although not immediately). Thus the antithesis between the fathers of the flesh and the father of spirits would not stand, and the force of the apostolic exhortation to afford greater obedience to God than to earthly fathers would fall. Nor if the concourse of God is not excluded from the production of the flesh (although attributed to earthly fathers because he is the universal first cause), ought the concourse of man in the production of the spirit to be excluded (because he is the particular second cause).
Shedd answers this well:
…This text [Heb. 12:9] is quoted by the creationist to prove that man is the father of the body only, God being the father of the soul. There are two objections to this explanation. (1) God is not called the “Father of our spirits,” which would be the required antithesis to “fathers of our flesh.” He is denominated “the Father of spirits” generally, not of human spirits in particular. The omission of hemon [of our] with pneumaton [of spirits] shows that the fatherhood is universal—relating to men and angels. God is the heavenly Father in distinction from an earthly father. (2) Had the writer intended to set the human spirit in contrast with the human body, as the creationist interpretation supposes, he would have said “the Father of our spirit” (tou pneumatos hemon) instead of “the Father of spirits” (ton pneumaton)…30
Shedd goes on to argue that sarx [flesh] “comprehends the whole man, soul and body,” and does not refer to the body only. I will not go so far as to agree, but Shedd’s point about God being the Father of spirits in general, including angels, stands.
Gordon H. Clark offers another excellent rebuttal:
Hebrews 12:9, which [Louis] Berkhof next cites, speaks of God as “the Father of spirits.” How can one get creationism out of this? He quotes “Delitzsch, though a traducianist [as saying] ‘There can hardly be a more classical proof text for creationism.’” One cannot but wonder whether Delitzsch was speaking sarcastically, for if this is the best text creationists can find, traducianists need have no fear. In ancient Jewish society, and sometimes in American English, the term father does not mean a boy’s immediate parent. Abraham Lincoln said, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers….” The Jews regularly referred to Abraham as their father (John 8:39). If the verse has any reference at all to the origin of souls, it suggests traducianism, not creationism. Berkhof really gives his case away by adding to the verse in Hebrews 12:9, Numbers 16:22, which says merely that God is the God of the spirits of all flesh. Well, of course; God is the God of all the universe.31
As for 1 Pet. 4:19, it does not refer to God as “Creator of souls,” but simply as the “faithful Creator” to whom those who are suffering should “entrust their souls.”
2. Arguments from the “Law of Creation”
Turretin (T5, Q13, §III):
… We endorse the creation of the soul…from the law of creation, because the origin of our souls ought to be the same as of the soul of Adam; not only because we ought to bear his image (1 Cor. 15:47, 48), but also because his creation (as the first individual of the whole species) is an example of the formation of all men (as the wedlock of our first parents was an example for the rest). But the soul of Adam was created immediately by God, since “he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7). Thus it is evident his soul was not produced from potent material, but came to him extrinsically through creation and was infused into the body by the breath of God himself. Nor ought it to be objected that we cannot argue from Adam to ourselves because the same thing might be said of the origin of the body (which nevertheless is not the case, since ours is generated from seed, while that of Adam was created from the dust of the earth). Although there may be a disparity by reason of the efficient cause on account of the diversity of the subjects (because as the body is elementary and material, it can be produced by man through generation; but the soul, being immaterial and simple, cannot spring from any other source than God by creation), yet with respect to the material cause a comparison may rightly be made. For as the soul of Adam was created out of nothing, so also are the souls of his posterity; and as his body was formed of the dust of the earth, so also our bodies from seed (which itself also is earthly and material). Therefore the mode of action with respect to Adam was also singular, yet the nature of the thing is the same in both cases…
…Finally, if Adam’s soul and ours had a different origin, they could not be said to be of the same species because his was from nothing. Ours, however, would be from some preexisting material wholly dissimilar.
Turretin’s reasoning here is limited to the strength of the proposition that “the origin of our souls ought to be the same as of the soul of Adam.” Scripture does not tell us that this is the case. Adam’s image is not defined by his spirit’s creation out of nothing. Neither is Adam’s creation “an example of the formation of all men,” as Turretin asserts, since the creation of Adam was a singular and supernatural event; therefore, there is no such rule or analogy established. To insist that the substance out of which God supernaturally creates a thing determines the substance out of which it must always originate (dust for body, nothing for soul) is to contradict the omnipotence of God by denying His ability to create out of nothing that which is to propagate out of something. It is more reasonable to conclude that God chose to create Adam’s body out of the dust of the ground to illustrate the materiality rather than out of some necessity. Had God so chosen, He was just as able to create Adam’s body out of nothing, as his spirit. After all, God did create the dust of the ground out of nothing; and God created light out of nothing prior to creating the sun and stars, yet light now comes from material sources.
Shall we deny God the ability to create man in such a way that children are propagated as whole beings, both material and immaterial? According to Turretin’s assumed rule, it would not be possible for God to do this without first creating some impersonal, spiritual substance—separate from both God and man—out of which to form the spirit of Adam. Turretin’s assumed rule reveals his materialistic approach to the human spirit, which is his error. Matter and spirit are not the same; and though spirit is spoken of in terms of substance, it is not to be thought of as spiritual material. The spirit is immaterial. On this point, Turretin seems to contradict himself within the same sentence (emphasis mine):
Although there may be a disparity by reason of the efficient cause on account of the diversity of the subjects (because as the body is elementary and material, it can be produced by man through generation; but the soul, being immaterial and simple, cannot spring from any other source than God by creation), yet with respect to the material cause a comparison may rightly be made.
A comparison with respect to the material cause cannot rightly be made regarding an immaterial soul. The validity of his desired comparison depends on both body and soul being treated as material (though of different types). Only that which is material can be defined according to its material cause. Turretin says that if Adam’s soul and ours had a different origin, then ours “would be from some preexisting material wholly dissimilar [to what Adam’s soul was from].” This is not the traducianist view, but rather, it is his view of the soul if traducianism is given as true, and it reinforces the fact that he has a materialistic approach to this argument.
Additionally, Turretin treats nothingness as if it were a material cause that must be duplicated in order to originate the same material. Nothingness is mere nonexistence. When God created the soul out of nothing, He brought it from complete nonexistence into existence. Nonexistence is not a material cause. The nature of what is brought into existence is not in any way characterized by its previous nonexistence. Nothing about nonexistence can be brought forward into the nature of what is created and now exists, in such a way as to identify the nature with creation ex nihilo. Adam’s soul at creation was no more related to nonexistence than to the dust of the earth. To treat nonexistence as if it were in the same category as material cause is to treat the supernatural as if it were a natural cause.
Turretin’s claim that if our souls had a different origin than that of Adam, then our souls would be a different species than that of Adam, confuses the natural with the supernatural. Adam’s spirit did not spring from nothing by way of some natural process. Rather, Adam’s spirit was created supernaturally by God. Only a naturally determined origin could define a species, so that only those individuals with the same natural origin would be part of the same species. To attempt to define a species according to its supernatural creation ex nihilo is nonsense. There is nothing in reason or Scripture to indicate that God does not have the power to create out of nothing the first members of a species that is designed to materially propagate; and neither is there any indication that God does not have the power to create the spirit of Adam out of nothing, with the built-in power to spiritually propagate.
Traducianists maintain the distinction between the supernatural and the natural; and so we see a different “law of creation:” creation was finished in six days, and God rested on the seventh. Shedd explains:
Genesis 2:1-3 teaches that the work of creation was completed on the sixth day: “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it; because that in it he had rested from all his work which God had created and made.” If the human soul has been a creation ex nihilo, daily and hourly, ever since Adam and Eve were created on the sixth day, it could not be said that “on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made.”…32
Turretin (T5, Q13, §XI):
God is said to have rested from all his work (Gen. 2:2), not by retiring from the administration of things, but by ceasing from the creation of new species or individuals (which might be the principles of new species). Thus he works even now (Jn. 5:17) by administering the instituted nature and multiplying whatever was; not, however, by instituting what was not. Now the souls which he creates every day are new individuals of species already created.
Turretin blurs all distinction between the supernatural, immediate work and the natural, mediate work of God. In the latter, God works with, in and through nature; while in the former, God works miraculously in ways that transcend natural laws and limitations. In six days, God supernaturally created the heavens and the earth and all that are in it. Of course, He has continued to “administer” things, but He does so mediately, not supernaturally. Calling into existence that which is not cannot rightly be called “multiplying whatever was.” God multiplies “whatever was” mediately through the natural processes and mechanisms that He designed into His creatures. For God to continue to create supernaturally would directly contradict the idea of God resting from all His supernatural creative work.
This confusion of the natural with the supernatural strips the supernatural and miraculous of all meaning. Baird explains:
The creation doctrine is exceptionable in subordinating the divine agency to the control of second causes. It must be admitted, that wherever the second cause is present, generation will take place. The conclusion is, that the creative power of the Almighty must wait in attendance on these finite agencies, to provide souls for the bodies thus produced. It does not obviate this objection to say that the whole matter is subject to the providential ordering and control of God. For however he may be recognised as providentially supreme, yet is his creative omnipotence placed in an attitude of inferiority. In the order of operation, it is supposed to follow and wait upon the action of the finite causes of generation. Again, this theory, by introducing miracles as an ordinary element in the common course of things, and placing them in undistinguishable combination with natural effects, destroys wholly the significance of miraculous occurrences; and thus sweeps away all means of information as to the existence of God and of communication with him…33
God’s supernatural creative power miraculously transcends nature and natural law; but, by Turretin’s argument, God’s supernatural power is incorporated into nature, subordinated to natural laws, and made part of the natural processes. This blurs the line between God’s transcendence and His immanence, and destroys the very concept of the miraculous. Was Christ’s birth miraculous?—Every birth is miraculous. Was Christ conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit?—Every child is conceived by such power, as God supernaturally creates the spirit within him.
Turretin’s claim, “but the soul, being immaterial and simple, cannot spring from any other source than God by creation,” begs the question. It is true that an immaterial soul cannot spring from a material source, as if a soul could be made from a rock (or a body). However, it is not proven that a soul cannot spring from a soul. This question will be addressed in more detail in the arguments from reason.
Turretin (T5, Q13, §III):
…This is confirmed by the production of Eve herself whose origin as to the body is described as from a rib of Adam, but of the soul no mention is made. Hence it is plainly gathered that the origin of her soul was not different from that of the soul of Adam because otherwise Moses would not have passed it over in silence (his purpose being to describe the origin of all things). And Adam himself would have mentioned this origin, yea he would have declared it specially; he would have said not only “this is bone of my bones,” but “soul of my soul” (Gen. 2:23). This would have set forth more strongly the bond of wedlock, which should be not only in the bodies, but also in the souls…
This argument from silence can be made just as compellingly in support of traducianism, as Shedd demonstrates:
…Eve was derived out of Adam. “The man,” says St. Paul (1 Cor. 11:8), “is not made out of (ek) the woman, but the woman out of (ex) the man.” And the entire woman, soul and body, was produced in this way. For Moses does not say that the body of Eve was first made out of Adam’s rib and then that her soul was separately created and breathed into it—as was the method when Adam’s body was made out of the dust of the ground—but represents the total Eve, soul and body, as formed out of a part of Adam: “The rib which the Lord God had taken from man made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:22-23). That the total female was supernaturally produced from the male favors the traducian position that the total man is propagated; that the soul like the body may be derived. The same creative act which produced the body of Eve out of a rib of Adam produced her soul also…34
Turretin’s materialistic approach is not justified by the facts or by the traducianist view. He seeks to defeat the traducianist view by showing that it logically leads to a materialistic view of the soul; however, rather than establish that traducianism results in such materialism, he assumes such materialism as his starting point. His assumed “law of creation” is not adequately established, as it is a rule of his own making. Though it initially sounds plausible, the conclusion that the soul must always be originated out of nothing, due to its original creation out of nothing, does not withstand close scrutiny. It is an inherently materialistic proposition and has been shown to destroy the concept of the miraculous. The strongest conclusion is that the soul is propagated from the parent, as the analogy of the propagation of the body from the parent would indicate.
Turretin (T5, Q13, §VII):
…The same thing is proved by arguments from reason. The soul is propagated by generation, either from both parents or from one only; either as to its totality or only as to a part. But neither can be said. Not the former because thus two souls would coalesce into one and be mingled. Not the latter, for if from one (either the father or the mother only) no reason can be given why it should be propagated by the one rather than by the other (since both parents are equally the principle of generation). If the whole is propagated, then the parents will be without it and so will be deprived of life. If a part, it will be divisible and consequently material and mortal. Nor can it be reasonably replied here that neither the whole soul nor a part of it is propagated, but a certain substance born of the soul and (as it were) an immortal seed of the soul. For it is taken for granted that there is a seed of the soul by which it either generates or is generated; yet such a seed cannot be granted (which does not fall from the soul), and therefore proves it to be material and divisible.
The Biblical doctrine of traducianism is not materialistic, but Turretin’s objections are materialistic, as established earlier. His argument demands a materialistic explanation, and offers many reasons as to why the materialistic propagation of the spirit (soul) is impossible. But his objections fail to squarely address the possibility of the immaterial propagation of the spirit, because he fails to acknowledge the limits of man’s knowledge. Baird addresses this scholastic overconfidence:
…the arguments here set forth… are made up of dicta of the scholastic philosophy, which assume the thing to be proved, are any thing but self-evident, and are incapable of demonstration. Such are the propositions, that whatever is generable is corruptible; that the soul is something above nature, and therefore incapable of generation by a natural power; and that every exertion of the generative faculty is from a merely physical force. In fact, Turretin, with calm unconsciousness, states as an unquestionable proposition, and an element of his argument, the very thing which he had set out to prove, that “the soul, as being immaterial and simple, cannot arise otherwise than from the creative power of God.” …There are two propositions here assumed as true, each of which is demonstrably false, and each of which is fundamental to the whole argument and essential to the conclusion. These are,—that the phenomena of generation are so entirely within the reach of comprehension, that if we are unable to explain the mode in which a soul may be begotten, we by that confession of ignorance forfeit our cause; and,—that the process is purely physical. An air is assumed of intimate familiarity with the whole rationale of the matter;—a familiarity which is not only unattained, but unattainable…
Here we would call attention to a principle, which is variously asserted as an element of the argument,… that the souls of men must be products of immediate creative power, because it is impossible in the nature of things that they should be generated… No one can assign limits to the action of a cause, unless he understands the nature and operation of that cause; and therefore we, who must confess our ignorance on these points in regard to generation, are entirely incompetent to decide that it is not possible that souls should be so produced…35
As James Boyce points out, such objections stand on the certainty of an uncertain knowledge:
The chief, and almost the only objection to this theory of any weight, is that the idea of propagation of souls involves their materiality. If this be true the theory must be rejected, even if we are left without any satisfactory explanation. That we cannot solve the problem otherwise, does not show that it has no solution…
But it may be questioned whether any such materialism is essential to a propagation of souls. It is claimed that extension belongs to matter alone, and that only through extension can there arise the capacity for increase in number. But this argues a knowledge of the nature of created spirits which we do not possess. The fact that the unity of nature and attributes in God as the Great Spirit, the Father of Spirits, involves actual simplicity in him, does not prove that the same is necessarily true of the spirits he has created. It is not certain that they may not have some kind of spiritual bodies. Is it not more than possible that he, who, though a simple spirit, can create spirit like himself, but not of his own substance, may be able to confer upon such spirits such a power of multiplication, that, what he does by direct agency in the first creation, he also may do through them in the mediate creations of other spirits? It is not affirmed that this is true, but is it possible to affirm that it cannot be true?36
Turretin allows for no mystery in the prospect of spiritual propagation, providing a set list of faulty materialistic options as if to declare that no other rational explanations of propagation can exist, and therefore, propagation of the spirit is disproven. But when it comes to points in his own doctrine, of which he is unable to remove all the mystery, he affords a less rationalistic confidence. Regarding the difficulties in explaining how sin is propagated, when the soul is not propagated (T9, Q12, §II), Turretin says, “Now although in a question of the highest difficulty all difficulties cannot be removed, still such things can be brought forward from the word of God as can satisfy the humble mind so that we may firmly and indubitably hold the thing, although we cannot fully and clearly understand the mode.” We apply this answer, aptly stated, to Turretin’s own rationalistic demands for a detailed explanation of the metaphysical mechanics of spiritual propagation—and point out his double standard, since it is the very denial of spiritual propagation that results in the mysterious difficulties of how sin is propagated to a child whose spirit is a new creation.
As for the reason why the spirit should be propagated from the father rather than from both, that will be dealt with in more detail below.
Turretin (T5, Q13, §VIII):
Again, all modes of propagation are pressed by the most serious difficulties; nor can they be admitted without overthrowing the spirituality of the rational soul… Not the second, which is held by those who think the soul of the son to be from that of the father in a manner inscrutable and unknown… This entangles rather than unfolds the matter. For the father produces the son either from some preexistent matter or from none; not from none because he would thus create; not from some because either it would be the corporeal substance of a seed (which has just been proved to be false) or it would be a certain spiritual substance of the soul (which again cannot be said). This is true because that spiritual substance is made either from the whole soul of the father or from a part only. Not from the whole because thus the soul of the father would vanish and be converted into that spiritual seed. Not from a part because thus the soul of the father would be divisible into parts, and because that substance is corruptible and perishes in the very instant the soul is produced. But then it will no longer be a spiritual or incorruptible substance. Thus it would follow that there are two spirits in the begotten man: the soul of the son and the spiritual substance from which his soul was produced. Besides, it is repugnant to the nature of seed for it to remain after the generation of the thing (because it ought to be transmuted into what springs from the seed).
And from the next section (§IX):
Not the third even though it may seem preferable to others. They hold that it is said to be propagated not by alienation, but by communication (as when light is kindled from light without any division of the other). (1) But the communication made of one and the same thing and without any alienation occurs only in an infinite and not in a finite essence (in which the same numerical essence cannot be communicated to another, but a similar only is produced). (2) The soul of the son cannot be produced from that of the father; neither terminatively (because the terminus a quo perishes, the terminus ad quem being produced), nor decisively (because the soul is without parts [ameristos]), nor constitutively (because the soul of the father is not a constitutive part of the soul of the son). (3) The similitude of the light does not apply. Besides the fact that the flame and candle are corporeal substances (while here the subject is a spiritual), it is certain that light is produced from the potency of the material. Nor can it be kindled without a decision of fiery particles transmitted from the lighted to the extinguished torch (which cannot be said of the soul).
Again, Turretin is assuming a level of knowledge concerning the human spirit that is not available. Boyce continues:
Besides, we should be careful how we dogmatize as to what can and cannot be true of spirits, when we now know so much to be true which a priori we should have judged to be impossible. Thus we now know through the creation of man that spirit can be so associated with matter as to give it a fixed location in space; as to bring it into such contact with matter as to be able to act through it, and upon it; and, more than this, that it is so affected by the condition of the material organism with which it is connected, that the outward manifestation and exercise of its powers is weakened or strengthened through that organism and its moral faculties influenced towards sin or holiness. These, and many similar facts, we now know to be true, which, without experience and Scripture teaching, we should have denied to be possible because of the substantial differences of spirit and matter. Even in the Divine Spirit we are taught that forms of plurality exist, which, without the instructions of the Word of God, we might have denied to be compatible with his spirituality and simplicity, yet, which, as now revealed, are seen to be in no respect inconsistent with these necessary peculiarities of the One God. These facts are not sufficient to enable us to maintain this theory of Traducianism as true, but only as possible, but they at least suffice to keep us from asserting that descent of one spirit from another can only come through some material substance in the soul, and from accepting, as the only possible solution, any other theory which may be accompanied with objections equally insuperable.37
What Turretin has tried to do in these objections is to apply a kind of natural law to the human spirit, to set out what is possible and what is impossible. But as Boyce and Baird have cautioned, the knowledge necessary to declare any laws of nature regarding the spirit, and specifically, the possibility of immaterial propagation of the spirit, does not exist. The fact that one cannot scientifically explain such propagation to the satisfaction of objectors does nothing to disprove the possibility.
Since knowledge of the nature of the human spirit is insufficient, Turretin’s division of potential means of spiritual propagation cannot be relied on as accurate—much less declared as exhaustive. Even if it is acknowledged that the physical is analogous to the spiritual in propagation, Turretin has over simplified the analogy to mere division of material. This is inadequate, since propagation (even of the physical) is not production of the mass of the offspring out of the mass of the parent. Even in physical propagation, it is not mere material that is propagated. The material is used to communicate the principle of biological life (or, “life force”) and the necessary genetic information; but both of these are propagated in whole, not in part—and they remain whole in the parents. Also, both of these were created ex nihilo and added to the dust that composed Adam’s body.
The material of a human body is not what defines or identifies the body. Certainly, I have the same body with which I was born, over forty years ago; yet, not one molecule within me was present at my birth. In fact, it is a cycle by which old cells die and new cells replace the old, that completely renews the human body every ten years. Though the material is completely different, the definition and identity are the same—the same life force and the same genetic information. But how can the principle of biological life and the correlating genetic information be propagated in whole without, as Turretin reasons, leaving the parents devoid of these? His reductionism is inadequate even for physical propagation.
Shedd’s logic on this point is unassailable:
The propagation of the soul involves no greater difficulty than its creation. If creation may be associated with both spirit and matter without materializing the former, so may propagation. We do not argue that if spirit is created, it must be material because matter is created. And neither should we argue that if spirit is propagated, it must be material because matter is propagated. God creates matter as matter and mind as mind. And he propagates matter as matter and mind as mind.38
Even if such objections regarding what may be naturally possible of spirits were accurate (and we do not concede that they are), Turretin has missed the fact that supernatural creation can be out of a preexistent substance and does not have to be out of nothing. Even if proven that a spirit cannot propagate by natural means, it remains true that God can supernaturally create the spirit of the child from out of the substance of the spirit of the human father—and God is not limited by any natural laws as to what is possible or impossible. While the evidence from reason and Scripture weighs in favor of the mediate agency of God in spiritual propagation, we are content to accept the possibility of a supernatural traducianism; therefore, this entire line of objection from reason fails. Though natural propagation makes more sense (and has been the traditional argument for traducianism), a supernatural propagation suffices for traducianism, so that all the usual philosophical objections about what cannot be naturally possible regarding spiritual propagation are set aside. Those same objections can be made regarding the possibility of five loaves and two fish being multiplied to feed five thousand people—it is not the infiniteness of the substance that matters in this case, but the infiniteness of the Agent.
Turretin (T5, Q13, §X):
Since, therefore, the opinion of propagation labors under inextricable difficulties, and no reason drawn from any other source forces us to admit it, we deservedly embrace the option of creation as more consistent with Scripture and right reason. This was also evidently the opinion of most of the heathen philosophers themselves. Hence the following expression of Zoroaster according to Ficinum: “You must hasten to the sunlight and to the father’s sunbeams: thence a soul will be sent to you fully enslaved to mind” (…Theologia Platonica de immortalitate animorum 10 [1559], p. 160). Aristotle asserts that “the mind or intellect, and that alone enters from without, and is alone divine” (… Generation of Animals 2.3.27-28 [Loeb, 170-711]). Cicero says, “No origin of the soul can be found upon earth for there is nothing in the soul mixed and concrete that seems to be or born from the earth and made…. Thus whatever that is which perceives, knows, wishes and flourishes, is heavenly and divine and on that account must necessarily be eternal” (Tusculan Disputations 1.66 [Loeb, 76-791]).
As has been shown, there are no “inextricable difficulties” with traducianism. And now, Turretin has acknowledged the influence of heathen philosophy. The bias, if you will, that looks on matter as ignoble and unworthy of involvement in the production of so noble a substance as the spirit—and indeed, so ignoble that the body and soul must be viewed as modular components rather than as a strong conditional unity—came from such philosophy, and has been so ingrained into the Western mind as to become a hidden assumption. If so many heathen philosophers taught that “souls” come directly from God to the individuals, then one should pause to consider just how accurate such a philosophy is likely to be. Baird speaks of the proper place of philosophy in this matter:
Further, whilst philosophy is entitled to a most respectful hearing, in its own proper sphere, on the other hand, when the Spirit of God makes to us communications involving radical questions concerning the whole relation of man to God, and to the salvation of Christ, it is the business of philosophy to be silent; and the statements are to be interpreted solely by the assistance of their Author, speaking in other scriptures. The declarations of the Bible are indeed to be explained and understood in accordance with the established laws of language; but the meaning thus ascertained may not be set aside, or modified, out of respect to any other than a scriptural authority,—the result of an impartial and reverent comparison of spiritual things with spiritual, in accordance with the analogy of faith. This is especially true where the statements in question, as in the present case, involve important theological issues.39
Turretin (T5, Q13, §XVI):
Although Christ was no less in Abraham (according to the flesh) than Levi (who was tithed in his loins, Heb. 7:9-10), it does not follow that Levi was in him according to his soul (so that the soul of Levi was propagated and that a distinction may be preserved). Rather Levi (with respect to person) was in Abraham according to seminal mode and the natural powers of the father and mother (from whom he was to be born). But Christ was in him only as to the human nature with regard to the mother; not, however, as to his divine nature and person. Thus his person could not be tithed; but as a superior he tithed Abraham and blessed him in Melchizedek (his type), not as man, but as the Mediator, God-man (theanthropos), performing a kingly and priestly office.
If Levi was not in Abraham in an immaterial way (spiritual, rather than merely physical), then it could not rightly be said that Levi did anything while in Abraham, for it was not Levi, but only his physical nature. Shedd agrees:
…Levi and his descendants are said to have had an existence that was real, not fictitious, in Abraham. But it contradicts the context to confine this statement to the physical and irrational side of Levi and his descendants. The “paying of tithes” which led to the statement is a rational and moral act and implies a rational and moral nature as the basis of it.40
Nowhere does Scripture indicate or express that Christ was in Abraham (or any other human father). Since Christ was born of a virgin, there was no traducianistic link to previous generations. If Christ had been in Abraham, as Levi, and had paid tithes in Abraham, then it would also be true that in the same way, He sinned while in the loins of Adam. This will be addressed in detail further below (in section II.A.5).
Turretin (T5, Q13, §XVII):
The propagation of original sin ought not to cause a denial of the creation of souls and the adoption of propagation because it can be sufficiently saved without this hypothesis (as will be demonstrated in its place). Although the soul is not materially from Adam (as to substance), yet it is originally from him as to subsistence. And as man is rightly said to beget man (although he does not beget the soul), so an impure progenerates an impure, especially (the just judgment of God intervening) that by which it was established that what he had bestowed upon the first man, he should at the same time have and lose for himself as well as his posterity. Now although it is curious to inquire and rash to define why God infuses a soul tainted with sin and joins it to an impure body, it is certainly evident that God did not will (on account of the sin of man) to abolish the first sanction concerning the propagation of the human race by generation. Thus the order of the universe and the conservation of human nature demanded it.
To say that the spirit (soul) is not from Adam “as to substance…yet it is originally from him as to subsistence,” is overly scholastic obfuscation. Either the spirit is propagated from one generation to the next, or it is specially created out of nothing by God—there is no option between the two. Turretin wants to lean on the law of propagation when he says that “an impure progenerates an impure…” but such reasoning only makes sense when an impure is propagated out of an impure. However, this is not what he has in mind. It is not propagation that causes the progeny to be impure, but “the just judgment of God intervening…that by which it was established that what he had bestowed upon the first man, [Adam] should at the same time have and lose for himself as well as his posterity.” In other words, God “established” that if Adam should, by sinning, lose his original righteousness, then God—out of some “just judgment”—would specially create each of Adam’s descendants with a soul tainted with sin. Turretin does not tell us here just how such a judgment could be considered “just,” when he denies any spiritual presence, participation or union of those descendants within Adam (he explains this in his discussion on original sin, addressed below). In the creationists’ system, God is made to be a continual fountain of corruption, even creating the sinful taint on the spirits of the children that are conceived around the world daily. Furthermore, if God has created their corruption, then how can He justly condemn them for it? Unmerited salvation is grace, but unmerited condemnation is injustice by any intelligent standard. This also will be addressed below.
4. The Common Errors of Traducianists
For the sake of clarity, it is necessary to point out the philosophical excesses and errors associated with the traditional traducianist (or, realist) view–to point out what Biblical traducianism is not. Shedd is arguably the greatest advocate of traducianism, and the most philosophical, so we will confine most of our analysis to his view. He and the many traducianists like him viewed the union of mankind in Adam as a union of species–much like one would view the union of all frogs in the first created pair (supposing only one pair was originally created). Shedd:
Traducianism applies the idea of species to both body and soul. Upon the sixth day, God created two human individuals, one male and one female, and in them also created the specific psychico-physical nature from which all the subsequent individuals of the human family are procreated both psychically and physically.51
In this view, man is merely a species among many, though superior in every way. The species of man has certain characteristics of nature, just as all other species, and Shedd saw the spiritual aspect of man as just one more characteristic of the nature of our species. The species of man, then, propagates according to the entire nature of the species, just as any other species does; therefore, our species, like all others, can be said to be in union in the first created pair. This principle of union of species, called specific unity, misses an important truth, which is that the union in Adam was a union of spirit. Though it is true that the adamic union was also one of the material nature, since all human bodies were propagated from the original man, it is incorrect to elevate the idea of species above the idea of spirit. Shedd said, for example, “…An individual person cannot be morally different from the species to which he belongs… No individual can rise above his species and exhibit a character and conduct radically different from theirs.”47 Shedd has assumed that the concept of species can encompass morality and moral character; but in what other species but man does morality have any relevance? Just as man is more than a mere physical creature, he is more than a mere member of a species. There are a myriad of created species on the earth, but only one in which the members are spiritual beings; and, there are three classes of spiritual beings (God, angels, and men), but only one can be rightly classed as a species. The concept of species is thus properly used only when referring to the material nature of creatures, while the concept of spirit transcends that of species. By inverting this order, Shedd (and those of his class) confused many things, and missed the parallel between spiritual union in Adam and spiritual union in Christ.
Shedd’s focus was excessively naturalistic. Although Shedd recognized the truth of spiritual propagation and continuity of spiritual substance, he did not squarely face the fact that spiritual substance is spiritual being. Continuity of spiritual substance is continuity of spiritual being–the two are one and the same. Since the spirit is immaterial, the term spiritual substance is somewhat misleading. The term is simply a convenient handle for the idea of spirit. It merely affirms that a spirit is a real thing even if intangible–it has certain properties and a certain nature. Shedd offers his definition:
In discussing either traducianism or creationism, it is important to define the idea of substance. The term, in this connection, does not imply either extension or figure. It is taken in its etymological and metaphysical sense to denote that entity which stands under phenomena and is the base for them. As in theology, the divine “substance” or nature is unextended and formless yet a real entity, so in anthropology, the human “substance” or nature is without extension and figure yet is a certain amount of real being with definite and distinguishable properties (Shedd, Theological Essays, 135-137). So far as the mental or psychical side of the human nature is concerned, when it is said that the “substance” of all individual souls was created in Adam, of course nothing extended and visible is implied. The substance in this case is a spiritual, rational, and immortal essence similar to the unextended essence of God, in whose image it was made ex nihilo…52
Define spiritual substance (or, essence) and you will have defined spirit–and that spirit has being, as the two are inseparable. Notice that while Shedd seems to acknowledge this, he only attributes “a certain amount of real being” to the idea of substance. This is an error, since partial being is absurd. Where there is spiritual being, there is consciousness and moral agency. The idea of being in Shedd’s system falls behind that of the idea of nature. Rather than simply dealing with the spirit, he weaves a complexity around the “psychical” nature that is somewhat materialistic. A cause for this can be found in the unfortunate assumption, prevalent among traducianists across the centuries, that spiritual propagation is bi-parental. Once it is understood that traducianism is paternal, then the idea of continuity of being comes into much clearer focus, and the philosophical complexity built up around the ideas of species and nature becomes superfluous.
The error of seeing traducianism as bi-parental also adversely affects how the humanity of Christ is viewed. This has led to some strange conclusions. Shedd goes so far as to posit that Christ’s human nature was sanctified, justified and redeemed prior to its assumption by the Logos:
Theologians have confined their attention mainly to the sanctification of Christ’s human nature, saying little about its justification. But a complete Christology must include the latter as well as the former. Any nature that requires sanctification requires justification, because sin is guilt as well as pollution. The Logos could not unite with a human nature taken from the virgin Mary and transmitted from Adam unless it had previously been delivered from both the condemnation and the corruption of sin. The idea of redemption also includes both justification and sanctification; and it is conceded that that portion of human nature which the Logos assumed into union with himself was redeemed. His own humanity was the “firstfruits” of his redemptive work: “Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ’s” (1 Cor. 15:23). Consequently, the doctrine is not fully constructed unless this side of it is presented. So far, then, as the guilt of Adam’s sin rested upon that unindividualized portion of the common fallen nature of Adam assumed by the Logos, it was expiated by the one sacrifice on Calvary…64
Such an error is astounding. One who is guilty and corrupt cannot redeem himself (not even “proleptically”), much less redeem multitudes. 1 Cor. 15:23 is speaking of physical resurrection and not spiritual redemption. Strong falters here as well:
If Christ had been born into the world by ordinary generation, he too would have had depravity, guilt, penalty. But he was not so born. In the womb of the Virgin, the human nature which he took was purged from its depravity. But this purging away of depravity did not take away guilt, or penalty. There was still left the just exposure to the penalty of violated law. Although Christ’s nature was purified, his obligation to suffer yet remained. He might have declined to join himself to humanity, and then he need not have suffered. He might have sundered his connection with the race, and then he need not have suffered. But once born of the Virgin, once possessed of the human nature that was under the curse, he was bound to suffer. The whole mass and weight of God’s displeasure against the race fell on him, when once he became a member of the race…
Notice, however, that this guilt which Christ took upon himself by his union with humanity was: (1) not the guilt of personal sin–such guilt as belongs to every adult member of the race; (2) not even the guilt of inherited depravity–such guilt as belongs to infants, and to those who have not come to moral consciousness; but (3) solely the guilt of Adam’s sin, which belongs, prior to personal transgression, and apart from inherited depravity, to every member of the race who has derived his life from Adam. This original sin and inherited guilt, but without the depravity that ordinarily accompanies them, Christ takes, and so takes away. He can justly bear penalty, because he inherits guilt. And since this guilt is not his personal guilt, but the guilt of that one sin in which “all sinned”–the guilt of the common transgression of the race in Adam, the guilt of the root-sin from which all other sins have sprung–he who is personally pure can vicariously bear the penalty due to the sin of all.65
Sanctification, or “purging away of depravity,” can never rewrite the history of a spirit that sinned in Adam in Eden. One who has sinned–even if only having sinned in one’s forefather, Adam–is thereby disqualified to be any man’s Savior. All who have sinned “fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23), whereas Christ’s glory was “as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
If the human spirit of Jesus sinned in Adam, then there is no just ground on which to intervene in the natural consequences of that sin (depravity) being passed on to Jesus. When Adam sinned, he spiritually died as both a righteous judgment and a natural consequence. God could not remain in spiritual union with a sinner prior to Christ’s purchase of redemption on the Cross. As sin is repugnant to God, and light has no union with darkness, so God’s withdrawal from Adam and Eve was necessary and immediate. This termination of spiritual union with God was spiritual death. Since men are propagated as whole beings, including the spirit, then all men spiritually died when Adam spiritually died. A dead spirit can only propagate dead offspring. Men are born needing the regeneration that only a Savior can provide. That consequence cannot be removed without removing the cause, which is the corporate guilt. If the guilt remains, and the guilt is just, then it would be unjust to remove the consequences of that guilt, which include spiritual death and resulting depravity. If the guilt is corporate, having been imputed to the race at the time of Adam’s sin and while the race was still within him, then the guilt cannot be removed without removing it from the entire race.
John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit while yet within the womb, but he was never more than a saved sinner–a depraved child of Adam who became a child of God. When Christ assumed human nature, He did not unite Himself with a spiritual heritage of sin. Christ said, in Jn. 8:23, “You are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.” Was Jesus not born in this world the same as anyone else? He was not talking about the physical but the spiritual. His human spirit came from the creative hand of God in heaven, while ours came from our fathers right here on earth. And, again, in 3:13, “No one has ascended into heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Jesus was the only one who spiritually descended from heaven. He is spiritually from above, while the rest of us are spiritually from below (right here on earth—but, of course, “above” and “below” as they apply to “heaven” and “earth” are just metaphors). Humanly speaking, Jesus was not a spiritual descendant of Adam—He is the Second Adam. In the next section (II.A.5.), we will examine in detail the evidence for the paternal nature of traducianism.
Shedd’s description of Adam and Eve is telling:
In and with [Adam and Eve] was also created the entire human species, namely, the invisible substance, both psychical and physical, of all their posterity. This one substance or “human nature” was to be transformed into millions of individuals by sexual propagation.53
The invisible substance of human nature as he sees it, was not merely created in the first pair, but also with them. He does not see this substance as propagated in the progeny, but “transformed into” them. This is a subtle but significant distinction, which will unfold as we look at more from Shedd, below. He does hold that “the individual man is propagated as an entire whole consisting of soul and body,” and that “man being a unity of body and soul is begotten and born as such a unity.”54 However, this wholeness and unity are only being viewed in relation to the propagated individual, and not in relation to the parents. Because Shedd holds to a bi-parental traducianism, he cannot see that it is the whole of the psychical (spiritual) nature of Adam that is propagated. Thus, he is forced into a materialistic understanding. Shedd:
Participation is the ground of merited imputation… The Posterity could not participate in the first sin in the form of individuals, and hence they must have participated in it in the form of a race. This supposes that the race-form is prior to the individual form, that man first exists as a race or species and in this mode of existence commits a single and common sin. The individual, now a separate and distinct unit, was once a part of a greater whole. Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 16 asserts the commission of a common sin in the following terms: “All mankind, descending from Adam by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell with him in his first transgression.” This term mankind denotes here the human nature before it was individualized by propagation. This nature sinned. Human nature existing primarily as a unity in Adam and Eve and this same human nature as subsequently distributed and metamorphosed into the millions of individual men are two modes of the same thing.55
Adam was a singularity of human nature. He had only one body and one spirit. All mankind have been propagated out of that one body and one spirit. Human nature did not exist in Adam in any way that was separate from him as an individual. Neither is human nature a collective unity of all the members. Human nature is complete in every individual, and was completely individualized in Adam. Rather than Adam possessing some “quantity” of unindividualized spiritual nature that was individualized by propagation in his offspring, Adam possessed his own individual spirit that was re-individualized by propagation in his offspring. The same can be said of any male, as every man is the spiritual singularity of his future descendants.
Shedd explains specific and numerical unity:
Specific unity is of course the unity of a species; and this means that all the individuals are propagated from a common nature or substance… A numerical unity may or may not be a specific unity. In the instance of the persons of the Trinity, there is a numerical unity of nature or substance, but not a specific unity. A specific unity implies the possibility of the division of the one numerical substance among the propagated individuals of the species. But there is no possibility of a division of the divine essence among the trinitarian persons. Consequently, they constitute a numerical but not a specific unity. But in the instance of man, the unity is both numerical and specific. The human nature while in Adam is both numerically and specifically one. But when it is subdivided and individualized by propagation, it is no longer numerically one. The numerically one human nature becomes a multitude of individual persons, who are no longer the single numerical unity which they were at first. But they are still specifically one.56
To Shedd, mankind was specifically one in Adam (which was a term for both Adam and Eve together), and that this specific union is always present and composed of all members of humanity together. This is defective. The species perspective should be discarded. The significant fact was not that men were specifically one, but spiritually one—species had nothing to do with it. We were numerically one in Adam because Adam was numerically one–a single man with a single spirit. Men have been propagated from Adam, in both spirit and body. But what should be an obvious fact is that once a child is propagated, he is no longer in the loins of his father. The one became many. Genesis tells us plainly that God told men to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth–multiply, not divide. Propagation is multiplication. That which is whole and individual in the first one became whole and individual in every descendant. It is the same with any father or forefather: he is a spiritual singularity out of which his descendants are propagated; and until they are propagated they remain numerically one with their father.
Shedd does not see propagation of the whole but of a fractional part:
The elder Calvinism, like Augustinianism, starts with a unity, namely, Adam and his posterity in him as a common unindividualized nature. This unity commits the first sin: “all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). This sin is imputed to the unity that committed it, inheres in the unity, and is propagated out of the unity. Consequently, all the particulars regarding sin that apply to the unity or common nature apply equally and strictly to each individualized portion of it. The individual Socrates was a fractional part of the human nature that “sinned in and fell with Adam in his first transgression” (Westminster Larger Catechism 22). Consequently, the commission, imputation, inherence, and propagation of original sin cleave indissolubly to the individualized part of the common nature, as they did to the unindividualized whole of it.57
Such a materialistic view regarding the immaterial soul is unreasonable, and has served to perpetuate the objections against traducianism. Propagation is not the taking of a fraction out of the whole, but rather, the whole multiplying by generating another whole. The human nature that sinned in Adam was reproduced in whole in the individual Socrates. One may conceive of a fractional part of a substance, but only of a material substance. Not only is the spirit an immaterial substance, but it is a spiritual being, and neither can be divided or exist in fractional form. Shedd’s error here is due to his focus on species, by which he sees the whole of human nature as consisting of the whole of the human race. As the human race consisted only of Adam and Eve at the beginning, then their sin was the sin of the whole human race (which he equates with the whole human nature). Since Socrates is only a fractional part of the whole human race, then Shedd sees him as only “a fractional part of the human nature that” sinned in Adam. He sees the entire species as one guilty entity, in which all the fractional individualizations share the guilt. Again, this focus on species is defective.
Shedd wrongly objects to what he calls “a spurious realism:”
There is a spurious realism arising from a wrong definition of the term human nature. Human nature is sometimes explained to be merely a common property of a substance like “rationality” or “immortality.” As all individual men have rationality and immortality as a characteristic quality, so all men have “humanity” or “human nature” as a characteristic quality. Human nature, as thus defined, is only an attribute or adjunct of each individual; and the whole of “human nature,” in this case, belongs equally and alike to each individual, as does the whole of the property or quality of rationality or immortality…
This is an erroneous definition. Human nature is a substance, not the property or quality of a substance. It is not the property or quality of an individual substance, but is itself a specific or general substance. Nor is it a specific or general substance added to or united with an individual, because the latter is only an individualized part of the former. Nor is it a “general principle manifesting itself in a given corporeal organization.” All of these definitions are incorrect. Human nature is a specific or general substance created in and with the first individuals of a human species, which is not yet individualized, but which by ordinary generation is subdivided into parts and these parts are formed into distinct and separate individuals of the species. The one specific substance, by propagation, is metamorphosed into millions of individual substances or persons. An individual man is a fractional part of human nature separated from the common mass and constituted a particular person having all the essential properties of human nature. The individual Socrates, for example, is not a previously existing “corporeal organization” to which “human nature” either in the sense of a property like rationality or in the sense of a “general substance” or “general principle” is added, but he is a distinct part of the human nature created in Adam, which part has been separated from the common mass and individualized by ordinary generation and which individualized part has the very same properties that the common mass has, but a different form. Suppose that a bit of clay is broken off from a larger mass and then molded into a cup. This cup now has an individual form that is peculiar to itself, such as it did not have before it was broken off and molded. This cup still has all the specific properties of clay; such as extension, color, mineral, and earthly elements, etc. But the clay that is in this individual cup is not the clay that is left in the lump from which it was broken off. Nor is it the clay that is in other individual cups that have been formed from other pieces broken off from the lump. Neither is this cup a piece of clay without properties to which a certain set of properties belonging to the lump are added, but it is simply a piece of the lump itself, having all the essential properties of the clay, but with an individual shape peculiar to itself… Similarly, no integrant of that portion of “human nature” which constitutes the individual Peter is an integrant of the individual John. But John is as truly human as Peter. The common properties of human nature belong to each alike.58
Subdivision is not propagation, just as division is not multiplication. Shedd seems so determined to contend for the philosophical concept of the universals of Platonic realism (as applied to the species) that he falls into a materialistic view of the immaterial, and misses the plain and simple reality that is reflected in Scripture. That which is immaterial can in no way be analogous to “a bit of clay is broken off from a larger mass.” Adam did not have “a large mass” of spirit, from which every man’s spirit has been broken off. Every man is a specimen of human nature in its entirety. The individual Peter and the individual John are separate individuals, but each is made of the same spiritual substance that composed Adam’s spirit–a substance that was multiplied, and not divided. Shedd explains how the universal relates to these questions:
The question respecting the priority of the universal (the species) and the individual (res) arises here. Whether the universal is prior to the individuals depends upon what individuals are meant. If the first two individuals of a species are in mind, then the universal, that is, the species, is not prior, but simultaneous (universale in re [universal in the thing]). The instant God created the first pair of human individuals, he created the human nature or species in and with them. But if the individuals subsequent to the first pair are in mind, then the universal, that is, the species, is prior to the individuals (universale ante rem [universal before the thing]). God created the human nature in Adam and Eve before their posterity were produced out of it. Accordingly, the doctrine of universale ante rem is the true realism in case res denotes the individuals of the posterity. The species as a single nature is created and exists prior to its distribution by propagation. The universal as a species exists before the individuals (res) formed out of it. And the doctrine of universale in re is the true realism in case res denotes only the first pair of individuals. The specific nature as created and existing in these two primitive individuals (res) is not prior to them, but simultaneous with them.61
Platonic realism should not be used as a framework for understanding human propagation. It has served only to obscure the truth and provide a focal point for unnecessary objections against traducianism. Shedd expands on this with a series of questions and answers that leave no doubt as to the corrupting results of this framework on his system. Citing a few of these will suffice:
2. Although the original human nature has been individualized by propagation into innumerable human persons, yet does not each pair, male and female, of these persons contain the whole of the human nature? Suppose the whole race excepting one pair should now be cut off or annihilated, would not the human nature be entire in these two? No; no pair of individuals, excepting the first pair of a species, contains the whole nature. All the individuals of a race can be propagated only from the first two individuals. Should an individual pair be taken at the middle of the series it would be impossible to derive as much population from them as from Adam and Eve. And the reason is that they do not contain the whole specific nature, but only a portion of it. Should ten pairs of individuals be placed upon one island, and only one pair upon another, more population, the circumstances being the same in both islands, would issue from the ten pairs than from the one; but neither from ten nor ten thousand pairs would so many issue as from Adam and Eve. After Cain and Abel were conceived, the specific human nature was in four individuals instead of two; was there any less of the specific nature in Adam and Eve than there was before any children were conceived? Certainly; a part of the nature is now divided from the primitive whole and constitutes a separate offspring. This diminishes the original mass in two ways: (a) by that fraction of the nature which is formed into the individuals Cain and Abel and (b) by that additional fraction of the nature which is taken to be transmitted and propagated by the individuals Cain and Abel. In this way, there is a constant diminution of the primitive nonindividualized human nature when once its division and individualization begins by conception. The specific human nature will not yield so many individuals from 1882 to the end of the world as it will have yielded from Adam to the end of the world…59
Evidently, not even Shedd realized the obvious. The reason that no pair or number of pairs could ever result in the propagation of as many descendants as the first pair (Adam and Eve) is because every descendant of every pair would also be counted as a descendant of the first pair–thus, there would be no way to exceed the first pair in propagation. However, this fact has nothing whatsoever to do with the nature of any pair, first or subsequent, and is simply a mathematical characteristic of humanity as a whole. Shedd tries to internalize this mathematical characteristic, making its effect a matter of the quantity of unindividualized human nature within any particular reproductive pair. This is the reason that he says that after Cain and Abel were conceived, there was less of the specific nature within Adam and Eve. The real reason that they will not be able to produce as many individuals after producing the first two is because the first two (and the progeny of the first two) will always be outside of the remainder, as well as included in the total number of humanity. The number outside of Cain and Abel (and their lines) will always be less than that number when added to Cain and Abel (and their lines). Therefore, Shedd has completely missed the reality. There is no diminishing of the original mass–no fractional parts–no unindividualized human nature. Shedd continues:
5. Why did the entire human nature act in and with the first two individuals, while the transmitted fraction of human nature does not act in and with each of the subsequent millions of individuals? Because in the former instance the entire nature by being created in the first two individuals constitutes a unity with them, but in the latter instance the fractional part being only transmitted, not created, does not constitute a unity with the individual in whom it is. When a specific nature is immediately created in the first pair of individuals, it has had no previous existence and makes an indispensable part of the newly created unity. But when a part of this nature is separated from the primary mass and is transmitted in and with a subsequent individual in order to be individualized by propagation, it has had a prior existence in the first pair of individuals and a unity with them and therefore does not constitute a unity with and necessary part of the subsequent individual. The individual in this latter case is complete without it because he is not a specific individual. He does not require, like Adam and Eve, in order to the completeness of his personality the unification of the specific nature with his individuality. Hence, when the propagated individuals of the human species sin against God, the fraction of human nature in them does not sin in and with them, because it is not one with them. It has already sinned in the first transgression in and with Adam, with whom it was one and is corrupt human nature, but it will not act out its own sinfulness until it is individualized by propagation and becomes a distinct and separate person by itself. In brief, the total human nature sinned in Adam and Eve because it was a unity with them; but does not sin in their posterity because it is not a unity with them. Only of Adam and Eve can it be said with St. Paul: “In Adam all die” (1 Cor. 15: 22) and “in whom all sinned” (Rom. 5:12); and with Augustine: “We all were that one man.”60
Once the race falls and dies in Adam, they cannot be said to fall and die in any subsequent person because sin and death are already a fact of the race and of the world. Only of Adam can it be said, “We all were that one man,” because “we all” includes, for example, Seth, who cannot be said to have descended from anyone other than Adam. This entire paragraph is a manufactured fiction, resulting from an excessively philosophical focus on species. A child is in a corporate spiritual existence with his father (or forefathers) until he is conceived as an individual. This applies to any child and any forefather. But this is only from the perspective of having the propagated individual in view. There is nothing about the spiritual existence or nature of the forefather that necessitates that any descendants be propagated. Any male has an unlimited potential for spiritual propagation, and there is no spiritual difference between a male who begets offspring and one who does not. The father is a spiritual singularity out of which is propagated the children. The mechanics of this propagation are admittedly mysterious, but not unreasonable.
Adam was a simple man with one body and one spirit. As a spiritual being, he had moral agency and responsibility. He sinned, and his spirit has been propagated to us, along with the history of corporately sinning in him and bearing the corporate responsibility. Since the spirit that has been propagated to us is our spirit and makes up our spiritual being, it is we who sinned corporately in Adam and bear the corporate responsibility. The word corporate is used because we did not sin as individuals, and yet there is a continuity of spiritual existence that cannot be dismissed; thus, the best way to describe a spiritual existence which is not individual is to use the term corporate.
Shedd compares the Trinity and the dual nature of Christ to human nature:
The distinction between “nature” and “person” required in traducianism is acknowledged to be valid in both trinitarianism and Christology. God is one nature in three persons. Christ is one person in two natures. In these spheres, the general term nature denotes an objective entity or substance, as much as the general term person. Realism, not nominalism, is the philosophy adopted by the church when constructing the doctrines of the Trinity and the God-man. Traducianism carries this same distinction into anthropology. Man was originally one single human nature which by propagation became millions of persons. This human nature was as much an objective reality as divine nature. And a human person is of course a reality. The individualization or personalizing of a common nature in and by its issuing persons is wholly different in anthropology from what it is in theology. Human generation is infinitely diverse from eternal generation and procession. Each trinitarian person is the whole divine nature in a particular mode or “form of God” (Phil. 2:6); but each human person is only a portion of the human nature in a particular mode or form of man. In trinitarianism, there is no division and distribution of essence; but in anthropology there is. The persons of the Trinity are, each one of them the same numerical essence, identical, and entire. When it is said that the Son is “of” the essence of the Father, the preposition ek [out of] is not used partitively, as it is when it is said that an individual man is “of” the substance of mankind. The trinitarian persons are also said to be “in” the essence–a preposition never used respecting a human person. God the Father is not a portion of the divine essence, but is the whole essence in that hypostasis. The same is true of the Son and the Spirit. But a human person is only a part of the specific human nature. If we should suppose God to create a human species that was intended to be propagated into a million human persons or individuals and that the distribution of substance was to be mathematically equal in every instance, then each individual of such a species would be one millionth part of it.62
God is three Persons in a single nature only as far as that nature comprises a single entity. The fact is that human nature is found in separate entities. Man was originally human nature in one single human which has been propagated into millions of examples of human nature in its entirety. The whole of mankind does not comprise an objective entity, and Shedd errs in seeing the whole of mankind as parallel to the Trinity as a whole. The spiritual substance of human beings is just as immaterial as the spiritual substance of God, and is not subject to division or mathematical quantification. Humanity has no inherent limits to its propagation, either materially or immaterially. The substance within each individual has no quantity and cannot be a fractional part of anything.
Baird’s approach is less philosophical than Shedd’s, preferring to stand on what he sees as the Scriptural affirmation of the fact of propagation, and remaining content to acknowledge the mystery of the metaphysical mechanics:
Rejecting all these theories, as well as every other which attempts to explain the precise manner in which the phenomenon of propagation takes place,—whether by appeal to the illustration of lux ex lumine, or in whatever other way,—we take the position, that the entire man proceeds by generation from the parents. We do not say—we do not mean—that the soul is generated by the soul, or the body by the body. But man, in his “soul, body and spirit,” is a unit, composed of diverse elements, yet having but one personality, in which the soul is the element of universal efficiency. Of that personality, efficient thus, it is that we predicate generation; and, according to the maxim that like begets like, we hold the child, in its entire nature, to be the offspring of the parents. The entire race of man was in our first parents, not individually and personally, but natively and seminally, as the plant is in the seed. When Adam was created, among the powers which constituted his nature, was that of generation. His substance was made to be an efficient cause, of which his posterity, taken in their whole being, physical and spiritual, are the normal and necessary effect. Thus, in Adam and Eve, the human race had not a potential existence, merely; but God, in creating the first pair, put into efficient operation the sufficient and entire cause of the existence of their seed. If we may so speak, theirs was not a nature capable merely of propagation, it was propagative;—by the very constitution of their being, as well as by the command and blessing of their Maker, they were destined to multiply and fill the earth.63
Though he seems unwilling to commit to a more explicit explanation, his doctrines of man and original sin (as those of most traducianists) logically involve a continuity of being.
5. The Nature of the Union in Adam
Traducianism is paternal: the spirit of the child is propagated from the father. Seth was begotten in the image of Adam the individual, not “Adam” as a term for both Adam and Eve, as some conclude. Adam is clearly spoken of as an individual in Gen. 5:3-5. While Adam and Eve shared the date of creation, it would be unreasonable to conclude that they both died in the same year. The entire genealogy of Adam, in this chapter, is paternal. For every generation listed, a single male is named, and the chronological details of his life are noted. This would be the same for the first as for any other. “The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years…” (ESV). Thus, in the previous verse, it was this same Adam who fathered Seth in his image: “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (ESV).
The fact that all the genealogies in the Bible are paternal weighs in favor of a paternal traducianism, as does the importance of paternal lineage that is found throughout. People groups are named after their male progenitor. Israel the nation is named after Israel the progenitor, as are many such examples in Scripture. Even mankind is named (in Hebrew) after Adam. It is often concluded that Adam was given a generic name for “mankind” to symbolically indicate that he was the embodiment of the human race. What is overlooked by such a conclusion is the consistent pattern in the Old Testament of people groups being named for their progenitor. Since Adam was the first man, the language would have naturally developed around him, so that whatever his name might have been, it would have become the word for mankind. Had Adam been named Cain, then “cain” would have become the word for mankind.
Along with language developing around Adam, the entire human culture developed with Adam as its basis. The paternal orientation of human culture, and the importance of keeping accurate paternal genealogies can only have come from Adam himself, who was the patriarch of humanity for 930 years. The genealogies begin with him, and the unbroken chain of information must have resulted from his emphasis on its importance. The unimportance of the genealogical information of females is significant. Even to this day, the most ubiquitous of people groups, the family, is named after the father in almost all cultures.
In Heb. 7:9-10, where Levi is said to have been “still in the loins of his ancestor when Melchizedek met him,” it is implied that Levi was in Abraham in a complete way, rather than only one-eighth of Levi being in Abraham (who was only one of eight great-grandparents). Scripture consistently presents the parental relation of the father in this manner. In Gen. 35:11, Jacob is told that Kings would come out of his loins: “And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins…” Again, in Gen. 46:26, “All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six…” The souls that came with Jacob into Egypt are not spoken of in any way that would indicate a partial presence, such as would be expected under the shared origin of a bi-parental propagation of the soul. Such language is never used of any female progenitor.
Elisha cursed Gehazi and “all his descendants forever,” in 2 Kings 5:27: “The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow.” Such a curse parallels the depravity that fell upon Adam and all his descendants. The fact that every descendant of Gehazi, no matter how many generations removed, bears the full curse of his leprosy, implies that every descendant was “in the loins of” Gehazi in a complete way that would only fit within a system of paternal traducianism.
In Deut. 5:9, God makes a startling statement about such generational consequences: “…I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…” Although the exact meaning of the phrase, “visiting the iniquity,” is unclear, the fact that it is the iniquity of the fathers and not of the mothers is clear and explicit. This verse is balanced by Ezek. 18:19-20:
Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? When the son hath done that which is lawful and right, and hath kept all my statutes, and hath done them, he shall surely live. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Whatever God meant by “visiting the iniquity” in Deut. 5:9, He assures us here that it does not involve the everlasting condemnation and second death–and explains this to the Israelites who had misunderstood His justice. It is significant that, while God contradicts their charges of divine injustice, He does not contradict the idea that such a relation exists between the father and children. Nowhere in Scripture is there the idea of the children bearing the iniquity of the mother.
It may be objected that Ezek. 18:1-4 contradicts a paternal traducianism:
The word of the LORD came unto me again, saying, What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord GOD, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel. Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.
However, the context shows that it was not the mode but the extreme to which it was taken that God disliked. It was not the principle of the sons reaping what was sown while in the loins of the fathers that God was contradicting, but rather, it was the mistaken idea that the sons were personally condemned for the actions of the fathers–as indicated by God’s answer throughout this chapter. “The soul who sinneth, it shall die.” The death spoken of in this chapter, which shall happen to the wicked but not to the righteous, can only be the second death, since all the righteous do in fact physically die.
Now consider our rebirth. Since Adam, every man has been born spiritually dead—except One, who was born of a virgin. We all were begotten of sinful, fallen fathers, and we are just like them. We need a New Father to give us a new image so we can be like Him. We need a new spiritual conception in which the Spirit of that New Father is begotten in us (see Ezek. 11:19; 36:26-27; 37:14). Gal. 4:6-7, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” The Spirit of the Son in our hearts makes us a true son of the Father. The Son unites with us in such a way that we share His identity.
When Levi was said to be in the loins of Abraham, this was an expression to convey that Levi was “in” the essence of Abraham. A child is in the essence of his father until he is conceived; and after conception, the child is “of” the essence of his father but no longer in it (though it can be said to now be in the child). There is a continuity of essence between the father and child, but only by propagation, such that the child’s essence came from the father’s essence but is disunited from the father by propagation. There is division of essence only in respect to the fact that the child is a separate entity from the father with no ongoing union of essence between them; but there is no division of essence within the father. In propagation, the essence of the father is mysteriously carried over beyond the person of the father to propagate a new person, separated in both personhood and essence from the father. Though the person of the father, and his individuality, is not propagated to the child, the essence of the father is propagated. Whereas in the Trinity, three Persons share one nature, essence and spiritual substance in one shared entity, in human propagation the person of the son and the person of the father share one nature, essence and spiritual substance in separate individual entities.
Prior to the conception of a son, only the person of the father exists. The person of the son does not exist until he is conceived; however, though the son did not personally exist in the father, he did spiritually exist in the father, since spirit and person are distinct. In all men except the first and Second Adam, human spiritual existence precedes human personal existence. This spiritual existence is impersonal only to those persons who will be propagated from it–it is not in any way impersonal to the individual in which it currently is. Adam had no “non individualized human nature” within him in the way that Shedd intends. Adam was a simple man, in all ways like every other man, in that he had a single human nature that was completely individualized to him. Like every other father, Adam’s nature was propagated to his children, and was individualized in them. Each child is his own individual person. Each child had a real, objective existence in Adam, but only as to Adam’s spirit and not as to Adam’s person or individuality which were not carried over to the children.
How long did Levi remain within the loins of Abraham? Levi was within the loins of Abraham until Isaac was conceived, at which point Levi was then within the loins of Isaac. After Levi was conceived, he was no longer within the loins of any father. So it is with mankind’s union in Adam. When Seth was conceived, all of Seth’s future descendants (all of mankind today) were no longer in the loins of Adam—no longer in a spiritual, traducianistic union in Adam—but were at that point in Seth. Shedd was incorrect to see a continuing specific unity in the form of the total members of the race viewed as a whole, and representationists are incorrect to see the race as still being “in Adam.” Mankind is no longer in union in Adam, because we have been propagated out of Adam.
The one became the many. When it is said that we sinned in Adam, it is “we” only from the perspective of the many. Adam did not contain the many, but rather, the many were propagated from the one. Since the spiritual existence of the many did not begin with their individual existence, but instead, started with the individual existence of Adam, then how best can the “we” state the fact that our existence, spiritually, began in Adam—if not by saying, “We existed in Adam”? What is not meant by this is that a plurality existed in Adam, but rather, that the spirit that exists in plurality now existed back then as a single spirit. Traducianists have invariable held that all men had a real presence in Adam and thus a real participation in his sin. This is not participation in the common sense, of plurality, but participation in the sense that the single man who sinned has now become many who cannot deny the spiritual presence within him when he sinned—not presence of plurality but of singularity. This singularity has most often been described such that we were “numerically one” with Adam. All sinned while in Adam…all sinned in Adam’s sin…all participated in Adam’s sin. Only that which has spiritual being can sin. If we had no spiritual being within Adam—or, if the spiritual being of Adam has not been propagated to us in such a way that our spiritual being was continuous with his so that we as progeny can look back with spiritual ownership on the deed of Adam—then it cannot be said that we sinned in Adam.
A spiritual being is a single person, but personhood is distinct from spiritual essence or substance. In the Trinity, one spiritual essence is shared by Three Persons. It is not the person of my father that I inherited, but his spirit. And of course, he still had his spirit after I was propagated, and he was spiritually distinct and separate from me after I was propagated. Most traducianists are not as clear on these points because they are encumbered by the bi-parental error, and see part of the mother’s spirit and part of the father’s spirit as being propagated to form the child’s spirit; but the principle is there.
It is important to understand that a man is more than a spirit. He is a spirit, a mind, and a body, with his own time and place in this world, his own memories, personality, and individuality. The acts of our fathers, including Adam, are only ours in the spiritual sense, corporately, and not ours in the physical or psychosomatic sense. What this means is that, basically, only the morality or spiritual significance of any particular act is involved when we say that one has done (or “participated in,” so to speak) something within the loins of his father(s). Adam’s eating of a piece of fruit was not what was passed on to us; rather it was his sin in the act that was passed on. Adam may have gotten fruit stuck in his teeth, but we cannot be said to have gotten fruit stuck in our teeth while in Adam. Only the spiritual is of any significance to future generations when it comes to the corporate, spiritual being “in the loins of” one’s father(s).
The main reason for the significance of the spiritual acts of our forefathers is that the spirit is the seat of the will regarding moral matters. The will with which you and I make moral decisions for which we are held accountable is the will of the spirit within, and that spirit–will included–was propagated from Adam. Animals have no moral relation because they have no spirit, and thus, neither moral comprehension nor moral will.
God sets the rules of identity and justice, and He has set it up so that damnation and salvation are strictly based on an individual’s life and deeds. This includes both sins that bring condemnation and faith that saves–neither are individually credited across generations. I as an individual did not sin in Eden, but we all certainly did while in Adam. As for salvation, it is not faith that actually saves, but God’s response to that faith (justification) that saves. God has said that He will save any individual man who believes; therefore, every man must believe for himself. Further, it is not a renewed condition of the Adamic spirit that saves the repentant sinner, but the indwelling Spirit of God, which is not propagated by human propagation. All spiritual life within the sinner who is saved and brought to life comes from the Holy Spirit within. The spirit of the one who believes has no life within itself to pass on by propagation.
Turretin describes the union in Adam in three ways: seminally (natural and physical), morally (political), and “as to origin of subsistence;” (T9, Q9, §XXIII):
Adam was the germ, root and head of the human race, not only in a physical sense and seminally, but morally and in a representative sense.
There is no way to jump from the “physical sense” to the moral and “representative sense” without jumping to the spiritual sense. Turretin habitually juxtaposes the physical with the moral, leaving out the spiritual. At least Turretin recognizes here that the physical cannot be the moral sense, but he leaves the obvious reality out of the picture. Spirits are moral or immoral. Moral representation has no moral basis without the spirit.
Turretin (T9, Q12, §XI):
Although souls were not in Adam as to origin of essence (because they are created by God), still they can rightly be said to have been in him as to origin of subsistence (inasmuch as they were to be joined with bodies as the constituent parts of those men who are the children of Adam and which in this respect are well considered guilty in Adam).
Men are said to be “well considered guilty in Adam” because they have been in Adam “as to origin of subsistence.” This scholastic language means that Adam was the first member of the species of humanity, which God designed to subsist in a human body joined with a human spirit, and instituted this species by the initial subsistence of Adam; and further, that Adam was the progenitor of all who have this human subsistence. From the perspective of the physical side of this subsistence, all have been derived from Adam; and from the perspective of the spiritual side of this subsistence, Adam was the first. Thus, not only is the human body derived and originated from Adam, but also, as Turretin sees it, the rules defining what makes up a complete human being (a human subsistence) also are derived and originated in Adam. And though we cannot rightly be said to have been in Adam in a spiritual sense (origin of essence), we can rightly be said to have been in him “as to origin of subsistence.” All of this amounts to nothing more than to say that Adam was the first human being, and therefore all who come after him “are well considered guilty” because of what he did, merely because he was the first. Baird critiques this reasoning:
In respect to the fact that, if the soul is an immediate creation, it was not in Adam, we are told that, “although the souls were not in Adam, as to origin of essence, because they are created by God, they are rightly said to have been in him, as to origin of subsistence, so far forth as they were to be joined to bodies as constituent parts of those persons who are sons of Adam, and who therefore in this respect are rightly accounted guilty in Adam.” That is to say, it was the design of God, at the time of the creation of Adam, to create a series of souls out of nothing by his own sole and immediate power, and cause them to dwell for a time in clay, which should hold a sort of vegetative relation to that in which the souls which apostatized in the garden dwelt. Therefore, it may be truly said that our souls were in those apostates, and sinned in them, and are now therefore guilty! Is such the idea which God’s word gives of the extent of our relation to Adam; and responsibility for his sin? Is this the doctrine of the Reformed confessions? That which saves the statement from self-convicted absurdity is the obscure terminology in which the doctrine is clothed. To say that we were not in Adam as to essence, but were so as to subsistence, has a sound which may pass for something more, if not too closely examined…48
Turretin (T8, Q3, §XI):
Man must be viewed under a double relation (schesei)—either as just or as the first. In the former respect, he had the power to perform the prescribed duty. Thus there arose the obligation of fulfilling it (which otherwise could not have had place since no one is bound to an absolute impossibility). In the latter, Adam in a certain manner included the whole human race, which was to spring from him, both as the root and the seminal principle from whom the whole human race was to descend (Acts 17:26); and as a public person and representative head, because he represented all men who were to spring naturally from him. Hence that covenant pertained not only to Adam, but to all his posterity in him. The illustrious Amyrald acknowledges “as he was the first man, he, as it were, represented the whole human race, which was to be born from him”(“Theses Theologicae de Tribus Foederibus Divinis,” 8 in Syntagma Thesium Theologicarum [1664], p. 213). Now the foundation of this union arises from the twofold bond connecting men with Adam: the one natural, according to which he was the common father of all and they his sons; the other forensic, by which from the most wise providence of God he was constituted the chief and head of the human race, who should contract for himself and his, and hold or lose the goods bestowed upon him, as goods common to the whole of nature.
Turretin refers first to the reality, that “Adam in a certain manner included the whole human race, which was to spring from him, both as the root and the seminal principle from whom the whole human race was to descend… according to which he was the common father of all and they his sons…” This fact alone is enough to establish Adam as a public person whose actions were rightly considered the actions of the race yet within him. If the fullness of that reality is embraced, then no additional forensic or representative office need be superimposed. But if Adam is seen merely as the physical father of all, and the root and seminal principle only in respect to the body and not to the soul, then all soundness is removed from this half of the “twofold bond connecting men with Adam,” which Turretin offers as just ground for Adam’s representative office. What foundation is this that renders men responsible for the sin of a man with whom they have no deeper tie than the physical body? A bond “between men” that exists only in God’s mind does not exist between men, as it touches no man–it is a mere idea and not a bond, and it is not between men in reality but between men in God’s mind. This false phantom was invented to maintain the consequences of a real union while denying the substance thereof.
Turretin (T9, Q9, §XI):
However when we say that the sin of another is imputed to anyone, we are not to understand the sin which is simply and in every way another’s, but that which in some way belongs to him to whom it is said to be imputed (if not properly, singularly and personally, yet commonly, on account of the union existing between him and its proper author). No imputation of another’s sin can be granted, except on the supposition of some peculiar connection of the one with the other. Now this union may be threefold: (1) natural, as between a father and his children; (2) moral and political, as between a king and his subjects; (3) voluntary, as among friends, and between the guilty and his substitute. Hence appears the foundation of the twofold imputation between Christ and us by which our sins are imputed to him and his righteousness in turn imputed to us (2 Cor. 5:21). We do not here refer to the last union (in which we confess previous consent to be necessary), but only to the former two (in which it is not necessary, in order to a just imputation, that he who bears the punishment of another’s sin should either actually consent to it or sometime have consented to it). For the bond between Adam and his posterity is twofold: (1) natural, as he is the father, and we are his children; (2) political and forensic, as he was the prince and representative head of the whole human race. Therefore the foundation of imputation is not only the natural connection which exists between us and Adam (since, in that case all his sins might be imputed to us), but mainly the moral and federal (in virtue of which God entered into covenant with him as our head). Hence Adam stood in that sin not as a private person, but as a public and representative person— representing all his posterity in that action and whose demerit equally pertains to all.
Turretin speaks to what is necessary “in order to a just imputation” of “another’s sin,” and sets out three kinds of unions in which such imputation is just and proper: natural, “moral and political,” and voluntary. Though he sees the first two as applying to Adam and us, he does not see either as capable of standing alone. If the natural union was sufficient ground “in order to a just imputation,” then all Adam’s sins would be imputed to us; and since he sees only Adam’s first sin as imputed, then more than the natural union was necessary for a just imputation. Thus, the political union is brought in as necessary ground for a just imputation. What is implied, however, is that even the political union is insufficient without the natural union. As Shedd said, “It is evident that while this eminent theologian lays more stress upon representative union than upon natural, he does not think that it can stand alone.”49 If neither union is just ground for imputation in itself, then just ground cannot be attained by the presence of both. The imputation of another’s sin must be based on a just reason; and an accumulation of insufficient unions will not change injustice into justice.
The substantial union of mankind in Adam, from whom we are propagated (both spiritually and physically), is a foundational principle of reality. Having rejected this foundational reality, nominalistic representation takes recourse in artificial constructs that are redundant to the reality in every significant point.
- Adam’s sinful act itself would have nullified (ipso facto) any prior righteousness; yet this reality is insufficient for representationists, who insist that Adam’s “original righteousness” was something given to him by God and taken away as a penalty (and also withheld from Adam’s progeny).
- Adam’s sin was a violation of God’s will and moral law, and would have been just as wrong and worthy of condemnation had there been no covenant; but representationists see the reality as insufficient, and emphasize the breaking of the covenant as the significant fact.
- Adam’s disobedience was sufficient in itself to warrant condemnation, curses and death; but representationists see the need to add to the reality, that it was the breaking of the covenant that brought the stipulated penalties.
- The reality of the propagation of man in both soul and body is sufficient to explain what both sides agree on, that the spiritual death and depravity of Adam have been inherited by all who are naturally descended from him; but representationists disagree, and assert that it is God who supernaturally intervenes by specially creating each child in such a way that the spiritual death and depravity come upon them as a penalty for Adam’s sin.
- The reality of spiritual propagation is sufficient to explain mankind’s union in Adam; but the representationists prefer a union outside of substantial reality—a union within God’s mind alone.
Two things are striking: the complete lack of explicit mention of any of these nominalistic constructs relating to Adam in Scripture; and the obvious superfluity in light of how sufficient the plain reality is on each point.
1. The State of Adam as Created
The first artificial construct that must be dealt with is that of the supposed “original righteousness” with which Adam was created. This construct was adopted to remove the force of the argument that a newly created soul must come from God without moral taint else God is the author of its corruption. If Adam’s righteousness prior to his sin can be seen as a gift from God, to be bestowed, taken away, or deprived, then God is not obligated to bestow this gift on the newly created souls of Adam’s progeny. Of course, this ignores the plain reality, as will be shown.
Turretin addresses the claim of “Pelagians and Scholastics,” that man was created in a state of pure nature (T5, Q9, §§II-III):
Natural can be taken in three ways: either for what constituted nature and is its essential or integral part; or for what immediately and necessarily follows the constituted nature (as its property); or for what is born with and agreeable to nature, adorning and perfecting it (such as is the habit born with us). We do not treat here of naturals in the third sense, but in the first and second, i.e., either in the constituted or the consecutive (called “pure” in opposition to accidents or separable qualities). Thus man is said to be in pure naturals (puris naturalibus) who consists of his own parts and essential properties without the gift of original righteousness and without any superadded qualities or habits (good or evil). It is called a state of pure nature (status purae naturae) by a negative not a positive purity (by which namely he has nothing good or evil superadded to his nature)… The question is not whether we can conceive of man in pure naturals by thinking of his essence and essential properties and by not thinking of his goodness or depravity (which is confessed on both sides). Rather the question is whether man, as he came from the hand of God, was created in such a state (or at least could have been). This we deny.
Having the question defined, we proceed to the arguments. Turretin (T5, Q9, §V):
However, we maintain that man was never created in a state of pure nature so called, nor do we think he could have been so created. The reasons are: (1) because man was made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26) and thus morally good and upright (Ecc. 7:29). For since that image (as it is afterwards said) consisted principally of original righteousness, he cannot be said to have been created in a state of pure nature who was adorned with this from the beginning. (2) He was made to glorify and worship God (Prov. 16:4; Rom. 11:36), duties he could not perform unless endowed with the necessary gifts (viz., wisdom and holiness).
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not merely about the knowledge of evil. If Adam and Eve were already righteous, then what was the need for their probationary test? Just as the sinfulness they encountered by eating the fruit was new to them, the righteousness that they would have earned by not eating the fruit would have been new to them. Righteousness, in finite creatures, must always be earned by someone within substantial reality. Even in the case of those who benefit from the imputed righteousness of Christ, that righteousness was earned by Christ Jesus. There is no such thing as an unearned human righteousness–it is an effect without a cause (for that matter, neither is there such a thing as an unearned condemnation). The probation of Adam was preparatory to his fulfilling of the role that God intended. But in order for Adam to be righteous, he would have to earn it through obedience; and if he passed the test, God would confirm him in righteousness forever. Even the angels went through such a probationary test, with one-third falling from heaven in sin. Every moral creature must be tested, because God demands righteousness, and it must be earned. And what is being tested, but the will? It is the will that obeys or disobeys, so that the will is indispensable to righteousness and sin; and this is the reality shown to us by the test in the Garden of Eden. In the case of man, every man was tested while still within the loins of Adam, and every man failed when Adam failed.
Until the command and the temptation were introduced into Adam’s and Eve’s existence, their will and God’s will were naturally in line—both God and man wanted the same things so there was no occasion for potential conflict between the two wills. By the giving of the command and the temptation of the tempter, the occasion arose where the congruity of man’s self-interest and God’s interests was challenged, so that a choice had to be made. Having never had to make such a choice before, Adam and Eve had never before made a moral decision. Choosing rightly would have earned them righteousness. Choosing wrongly earned them condemnation and immediate spiritual death. Either choice would have gained them the knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge did not come from the fruit (any fruit tree would have served the purpose), but it came from the knowledge gained by coming to the decision point and deciding either way. It was, in effect, the Tree of Moral Agency. By resisting temptation, they could have gained both an earned righteousness and the knowledge of good and evil. But they chose the other route—according to their free will and according to God’s plan.
Turretin sees the image of God in man as consisting in three things; (T5, Q10, §VI):
…This image consisted in gifts bestowed upon man by creation. These were not only essential or only accidental, but both at the same time: internal as well as external, by which he was placed in such a degree of nature, perfection and authority that no visible creature was either more like or more closely allied to God. It consists in three things most especially: (a) In his nature; (b) rectitude of nature; (c) the happy state founded upon both. Antecedently in nature (as to the spirituality and immortality of the soul); formally in rectitude or original righteousness; consequently in the dominion and immortality of the whole man (which was the brightness of that shining image and the rays striking out in all directions which illumined the whole man).
It is with the second of these, rectitude of nature as the gift of original righteousness, that we disagree. The kind of human righteousness that reflects God’s image is the kind that is chosen and earned. As such, man was created morally like a child, designed to grow into that image by means of the moral test. Turretin (T5, Q10, §VIII):
To it pertains rectitude and integrity, or the gifts bestowed upon man, usually expressed by original righteousness, which was created with man and bestowed upon him at his origin, embracing wisdom in the mind, holiness in the will, and rectitude and good order (eutaxian) in the affections. It bespeaks such a harmony among all his faculties that the members obey the affections, the affections the will, the will reason, reason the divine law, and thus the man exists upright and innocent and without sin, but yet in a state always mutable, endowed with a fourfold liberty: (a) from coaction; (b) from physical necessity; (c) from sin; (d) from misery (of which hereafter).
Adam’s original nature, as described here, would make sinning impossible. What good were these supposed characteristics and principles of harmony and rectitude if they were not in operation when Adam chose to exercise the opposite of all of these? The plain reality of man’s first sin stands in stark contradiction to the possession of “original righteousness,” the supposed gift bestowed on his nature, “embracing wisdom in the mind, holiness in the will, and rectitude and good order… in the affections.” Merely claiming that Adam was mutable does nothing to explain a change from moral rectitude to immorality that is chosen from a righteous nature. It is odd that the lack of this original righteousness is thought to result in the sinning of Adam’s descendants, when even the supposed presence of it in Adam did not prevent his own sin. The fact of Adam’s sin proves that he did not have it.
The real difference between man as created and man as fallen is that the former was spiritually alive, and the latter is spiritually dead. Man was created in a vital, spiritual union with God. The exact nature of this union is unknown. But we do know that what was lost by Adam in this respect is restored by Christ, though the latter state is better than the first. Man’s first sin brought immediate spiritual death, in which all men died in Adam. Now, the Spirit of Christ brings life to those who believe. Like the Christian’s union with God, Adam was still able to choose to act in a sinful, self-centered way, though also able to choose not to sin. But unlike our union with God, that union which Adam had with God was not based on the atoning sacrifice of Christ. Thus, God brought nothing to that union with which to deal with any sin. When the man sinned, the union with God was severed. Man, spiritually cut off from God, was thereafter self-centered by nature. Self-centeredness in the face of a God who ought to command our full devotion is sin, and a self-centered nature is a sin nature, inevitably resulting in more sin.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they immediately became both spiritually dead (cut off from union with God) and guilty sinners. They were now moral agents who had the knowledge of good and evil, and with it the guilt of having wrongly made their first moral decision. There was no “original righteousness” remaining to be removed as a penalty.
Turretin (T5, Q9, §VI):
(3) Where two things immediately opposed belong to any subject, one or other of the two must necessarily be in it. Now righteousness and sin are predicated of man as their fit (dektiko) subject and are directly(amesos) opposed to each other. Therefore one or the other must necessarily be in him; nor can there be a man who is not either righteous or a sinner. To no purpose is the example of infants brought forward, who can neither be called righteous (because they do not act justly), nor sinners (because they cannot sin). For although an infant cannot be called righteous or a sinner by actual righteousness or sin, still he can by habitual and congenital (as he is rightly called rational because he has reason in the first act [in actu primo], although not as yet having actually reasoned or being able to reason).
Righteousness and sin are predicated of the will of man as a moral agent. Until Adam and Eve were brought as moral agents to a point of decision, their will was not yet exercised to obey or disobey. Though created as physically mature adults, their moral agency was not yet fully developed. Though the fact often goes unnoticed, the tree of their sin was called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, indicating that their knowledge of good and evil commenced with their first sin. In that sense, they were like the “little ones” of Deut. 1:39 who did not yet have knowledge of good or evil (with the difference being that people are born fallen, which will be addressed in more detail below).
Turretin (T5, Q9, §§VII-VIII):
(4) That state of pure nature is a sheer figment; it never was, nor could be. Not in man’s perfect state because in it he should be entire and innocent; not in the state of sin because he is born a child of wrath; not in the state of glory because then his holiness and happiness will be consummated… The state of pure nature is not so called in opposition to an impure (for thus the state of integrity might properly be called because the nature was then pure and innocent), but in opposition to gifts and spiritual habits of righteousness and holiness…
In man’s state before the fall, he was not perfect else he would not have sinned. Only God is perfect. That man should be innocent requires only that he is not yet guilty of sin. For man to be “entire” may mean something more: if he is to be entirely righteous or complete in his integrity, he must first pass the test.
Turretin (T5, Q9, §IX):
God could, indeed, have not created man. But it being posited that he willed to create him, he could not have created him lawless and not imposed a law upon him when created. For as there is always an essential physical dependence of the creature upon the Creator in the genus of being, so there must also be an ethical dependence in the genus of morals. Nay, although God had not subjected him to an external law, conscience and the dictates of right reason would have been a law to him (which the apostle calls “the work of the law,” Rom. 2:15).
The conscience (the work of the law written on the hearts of men) operates in those who have the knowledge of good and evil. What need was there for the test if God’s law was already understood? If that were so, then God could wait until Adam broke one of the laws written on his heart. But because they did not yet have such understanding, God gave them just one command–one simple enough to understand.
Turretin (T5, Q9, §§X-XI):
Since the very want of original righteousness is sin, man cannot be conceived as destitute of it without being conceived to be a sinner (especially since that defect would not be a mere negation, but a privation of the rectitude that ought to be in him)… There may be a man who is not righteous or who is not a sinner; but not one who is neither righteous nor a sinner…
If a man is a sinner, it is because he has sinned, either as an individual or while in Adam. Though newly conceived children are rightly said to have sinned while in Adam, they are not guilty of individual sin until they sin as individuals (Deut. 1:39; Rom. 9:11). The idea that sin or righteousness can be an accountable state of nature prior to the first exercise of will, when moral agency is attained (“the knowledge of good and evil”), is not established.
Turretin acknowledges the difficulty in reconciling man’s “original righteousness” with his fall (T9, Q7, §§I-II):
Two questions are involved here: the first concerns the possibility of the fall; the other concerns its true cause. Each is difficult to explain, and in the explaining of each, there are a variety of sins… As to the first, the difficulty is not great in assigning the origin of all the sins which have sprung from the fall of Adam. Since men are corrupt, nothing is easier to conceive than why they sin daily. A depraved concupiscence can put forth no other than depraved and inordinate motions. But in innocent man, while no error had place in his mind, nor did any disorder (ataxia) in his will (in whom was original righteousness) hinder a fall (and incompatible [asystatos] with it), it is most difficult to imagine in what way at length man in a state of integrity could fall.
His solution is to emphasize the mutability of Adam (§§ IV-VI):
Thus, he could indeed stand if he wished, but could also if he wished become evil. This event itself sufficiently proves (if nothing else could teach it)… Although that mutability indicates the possibility of the fall and is the cause sine qua non (or the antecedent of the fall), still it cannot be considered its cause proper and of itself… The proximate and proper cause of sin therefore is to be sought nowhere else than in the free will of man (who suffered himself to be deceived by the Devil and, Satan persuading though not compelling, freely departed from God). So neither as a whole properly did he fall, nor as corrupt; but as imbued with a false idea, he corrupted himself and (the habitual knowledge implanted by God being neglected) received the error suggested by Satan. Nor ought it to seem strange that man (created capable of falling and mutable) changed and fell, no more than that a beginning of motion takes place in one perfectly at rest. For where there is a power to change, the transition from power to act is easy.
It is agreed that Adam had the power and liberty to choose to sin “if he wished.” The question, which remains unanswered in all of Turretin’s explanations, is why Adam would wish such a thing. The closest that Turretin comes to answering this is in the (T9, Q6, §§VI-IX):
Hence it is evident that the beginning of sin is better referred to unbelief than to pride, although in it both are joined… Pride could not have place in man except on the positing of unbelief. As long as man remained constant in belief of the divine word, he never could be impelled to pride, nor shake off God’s yoke, nor dare to affect a superior degree (partly of knowledge, partly of excellence) unless he did not believe the threatening of death annexed to the prohibition to be true (or at least have doubts of it)… But unbelief could not have place in man, unless first by thoughtlessness he had ceased from a consideration of God’s prohibition and of his truth and goodness. If he had always seriously directed his mind to it (especially in the moment of temptation), he could never have been moved from his faith and listened to the tempter. Hence, therefore, unbelief or distrust flowed first. By this man did not have the faith in the word of God which he was bound to have, but shook it off at first by doubting and presently by denying; not seriously believing that the fruit was forbidden him or that he should die. Again, note the credulity by which he began to listen to the words of the Devil (engendering a false faith from his lies), believing that God envied him the fruit and that he would be like God and omniscient. Thus he made an erroneous judgment by which he determined that the object presented by the Devil was good for him. Hence presently his appetite and the inclination of concupiscence and its motions influenced the will to the eating of the fruit.. At length, the external action followed. This inconsideration may well be called the beginning or first stage of sin. As it could fall on man mutable, so it could not be exercised in act by man standing (rather already beginning to recede from God and to corrupt himself through his own mutability and the seduction of the Devil).
According to this, Adam’s first motion of change from original righteousness to depravity, from faith to unbelief and then to pride and disobedience, was “by thoughtlessness,” by which, ”he had ceased from a consideration of God’s prohibition and of his truth and goodness.” When Adam thoughtlessly “ceased from a consideration of God’s prohibition,” by which he “shook off” his faith in the Word of God, where was the “embracing [of] wisdom in the mind, holiness in the will and rectitude and good order in the affections?” Thoughtlessness does not reflect wisdom of the mind. Choosing to cease from a consideration of God’s Word does not reflect holiness of the will. Where was the rectitude and good order? Adam was created without any inclination to sin, and yet he did sin–of these two things we have no doubt. But of the supposed possession of these characteristics of “original righteousness” we find no evidence. Admitting these characteristics leaves his sin without explanation. Mere mutability does not explain how one with a holy will can exercise that holy will to choose a less than holy path leading to sin. We cannot but conclude that the idea of “original righteousness” has no basis in reality and is not established by Scripture or reason.
Propagation is not creation out of nothing according to the pattern, mold, and characteristics of the “parents.” “Propagation,” says Shedd, “implies continuity of substance and immutability of properties. In the propagation of the body, there is continuity of substance and sameness of properties between the producing and the produced individuals, between the parents and the child. There is no creation ex nihilo of new substance and properties.”41 Since Turretin’s view of the origin of the soul incorporates the supernatural creative power of God into nature, making supernatural creation an ordinary part of the natural processes, he is able to redefine propagation so that it includes creation ex nihilo. He calls it a “certain and immovable law” and “an established law of nature” that God would put a soul [specially created ex nihilo] into every human body. Turretin (T9, Q12, §XII):
Nor ought it to be considered unworthy of the divine goodness that the soul should be placed in a corrupt body. From the beginning, he sanctioned (by a certain and immovable law) that he would place a soul in every organized human body. This law ought not to have been abolished on account of the sin of man.
And in the next section (§XVIII):
Now in this way God cannot be considered the author, but the avenger of sin. He is the author of the union as his own work; but not of the sin (another’s fault). He unites the soul to the body to preserve the species; he joins the soul deprived of righteousness to a corrupt body for a punishment of sin. Nor is God the cause of the corruption, if in joining the soul to the body he carries out an established law of nature (from which man proceeds properly, but the sinner only accidentally).
Laws of nature are carried out by nature and need no divine intervention; otherwise, it is not natural law being carried out but supernatural acts. This confusion of the natural with the supernatural, as addressed earlier, is an error. Thus, Turretin has misappropriated the term propagation, using its normally understood meaning to lean on the idea of immaterial propagation without explicitly embracing the idea. He states (T9, Q10, §VI), “Rather the question is whether there is any inherent depravity (called original sin) propagated from Adam to all his posterity springing from him by natural generation. They deny; we affirm”; and (§VIII), “Second, the same thing is proved from Gen. 5:3 where Adam is said to have begotten Seth ‘after his image’ (i.e., a corrupt one begat the same). Now he could not be corrupted in generation in any other way than by contracting original corruption.” He clearly insists that depravity (corruption) is contracted, inherent and propagated by natural generation. The next section (§IX) is even more perplexing:
Third, from Job 14:4–”Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” Here purity is removed from all men (not even one being excepted), and uncleanness is ascribed to them (not simply external of the body, which can easily be taken away, but internal of the soul). The latter is inevitable, cannot be purged by nature and renders one liable to the judgment of God (Job 14:3); not actual only and transient, but permanent and hereditary, derived from the parent to the offspring (which can be no other than original sin, whatever is meant by the word tm’, whether “seed” or “man”).
Turretin affirms that this uncleanness is “internal of the soul,” and that it is “hereditary, derived from the parent to the offspring.” Job’s meaning is straightforward, with which Turretin agrees: the offspring are unclean because they are brought out of unclean parents. This requires that the thing in which the uncleanness inheres is the thing which has been brought out of the unclean parent. If it were the body that is referred to here as unclean, then it would mean that the unclean body of the child is brought out of the unclean body of the parent. Since Turretin rightly recognizes that the text is referring to the soul that is unclean, then his acknowledgement that the soul of the child is brought out of the soul of the parent is implied. Thus, he again leans on traducianism. Only by traducianism can such expressions as “contracted,” “hereditary,” and “derived from the parent to the offspring,” be used in their proper meaning to indicate the propagation of moral corruption. If God supernaturally creates (ex nihilo) the soul of the child in a condition of moral corruption, and does so according to the corruption that he sees in the parents, then the only thing derived from the parents is the idea and perception and not the corruption itself. Furthermore, since this corruption was created by God, it cannot be said to be contracted like a disease, unless it is contracted from God who is the only Source of the soul’s origin. Turretin (§XI):
Fifth, all are by nature “flesh and born of the flesh” (Jn. 3:5, 6). For “except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.” Here is pointed out: (1) the necessity of a supernatural regeneration, which supposes natural generation to be corrupt; (2) the universality of corruption infecting all because all are flesh…
Turretin rightly acknowledges that supernatural regeneration is made necessary by the corruption of natural generation. However, since the moral corruption of the soul is in view, then the contrast is lost in his system, since both regeneration and generation are supernatural.
Turretin (§XIV):
The common law that everything begotten is like the begetter; as much as to species as with regard to the accidents belonging to the species. Generation is the communication not only of essence, but also of the qualities and accidents belonging to the species (as therefore a man generates a man, so a sinner can generate no other than a sinner).
This “common law” cannot apply to the soul, which is, in Turretin’s view, specially created by God, in the same way that applies to the body (and to other species). Spiritually, man does not generate a man, but God generates the offspring out of nothing. There is no communication of spiritual essence, and therefore no communication of qualities and accidents (such as moral corruption) is possible. Turretin’s reliance on this common law to support his view of propagated sin is another example of leaning on traducianism.
(§ XIX):
Although sin is pardoned in the parents, still nonetheless it can be transmitted to their posterity because the guilt being remitted, the taint always remains; if not wholly, at least in part. Hence as a circumcised person begets an uncircumcised, so a believer and renewed man begets a corrupt and unrenewed. He does not generate by grace, but by nature (as from a grain cleared of chaff is produced a grain with the chaff).
(§§XXII and XXIII):
In the propagation of sin, an accident does not pass over from subject to subject. The immediate subject of sin is not the person, but human nature vitiated by the actual transgression of the person which, being communicated to posterity, this inherent corruption in it is also communicated. Therefore, as in Adam, the person corrupted the nature; so in his posterity, the nature corrupts the person.
Although the mode of the propagation of sin is obscure and difficult to explain, the propagation itself (which Scripture so clearly asserts and experience confirms) is not on that account to be denied.
Through what medium is this moral corruption and taint “transmitted” and “communicated?” It cannot be “transmitted” or “communicated” through the spiritual nature, since there is no continuity of substance between parent and child–the transmission would be broken. In the creationist system, the spiritual traits, qualities and accidents are transmitted (communicated) through God’s mind alone as the medium between parent and child. To transmit or communicate properly means to pass something through substantial reality. God’s mind is not a medium through which to transmit–His supernatural creative power is not an involuntary function or reflex. As such, the terms transmit and communicate are misappropriated, being used to lean on what is actually denied. If God chooses to create the soul of the child with the moral corruption of the parents (or of Adam), this is not transmission or communication, but rather, it is the exercise of the sovereign will of God to create in this way.
Even with these inconsistencies and misappropriated terms, creationists such as Turretin encounter great difficulty in explaining how moral corruption can be propagated. To attribute moral corruption to the body would be Gnostic error, as mere matter can have no moral taint. However, it would be just as unsatisfactory to hold that God specially creates these souls with moral corruption coming from God’s own creative hand.
Often, these creationists are driven to imply that the body carries with it some metaphysical elements that are not part of the spiritual soul, though they are not mere matter. Turretin falls into these common errors. Turretin posits three degrees of propagation, and expounds the first degree (T9, Q12, §VIII):
In order therefore to explain this mode in the best way possible, we hold three degrees of that propagation: (1) in the conception of the body from an unclean seed; (2) in the creation of the rational soul with the want of original righteousness; (3) in the constitution of the whole compound by the union of the soul with the body. The first is in the conception of the body from an unclean seed, for as is the material, such ought to be the product: “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” (Job 14:4). “What is born of the flesh is flesh” (Jn. 3:6). Now although the body of itself is not the receptive (dektikon) subject of sin (so that it may be said to be in it consummately, formally and perfectly), yet there is nothing to prevent its being said to be in us inchoatively, dispositively and radically (as in the proper residence of the soul, soon to coalesce in the same person with the soul). The tinder of that sin is derived in the conception itself and is impressed upon the fetus through the vital and animal spirits (as children are want to draw from parents not only diseases themselves in act, as the gout and gravel, but their seeds and certain impressions which are the principals of those diseases).
The body is conceived from a material seed, of which the word unclean can only have a material meaning. The ceremonial uncleanness in the Mosaic Law, relating to bodily discharges, etc., is not to be confused with an actual moral taint inhering in the physical flesh. It is not the seed, but the progenitor that is the ruin of the progeny. Job 14:4 is not speaking of an unclean body being born out of an unclean body, but an unclean soul being propagated from unclean parents. Turretin tries to avoid Gnosticism by carefully affirming that “…the body itself is not the receptive… subject of sin (so that it may be said to be in it consummately, formally and perfectly)…” but such qualification fails to keep him from attributing moral taint to the body, as he continues, “yet there is nothing to prevent its being said to be in us inchoatively, dispositively and radically (as in the proper residence of the soul, soon to coalesce in the same person with the soul).” Moral taint, otherwise described as sin or sinfulness, cannot be found in any form within the cells and systems of the human body–not even inchoatively, dispositively or radically. To claim otherwise is Gnostic error–and worse, it is to blame our sin on the defective bodies with which we were born, rather than to accept full responsibility. Adam’s sin did indeed affect his entire nature, both material and immaterial; however, while his sin affected his spirit in a spiritual way, his sin affected his body in a strictly physical way. All of the physical problems (mortality, sickness, fatigue, aging, pain, etc.) are the material effects of sin on the material nature. Depravity and spiritual death are the immaterial effects of sin on the immaterial nature. It is Gnostic error to confuse these such that sin is seen to have an immaterial effect on man’s material nature.
Biblically, a man has a spirit (or, soul), and a body. There is nothing to support the idea that man has, in addition to his spirit and body, “vital and animal spirits.” Baird compares this invention to Manichaeism:
As to the difficulty in respect to the propagation of depravity, on the supposition of the creation of the soul, orthodox writers vacillate between a Manichean ascription of the original corruption to the body,–a covert reference of it to God as the author,–and a scholastic semi-Pelagianism, which represents the soul as created neither holy nor unholy, and attributes its ultimate depravity to surrounding circumstances. The first theory alluded to, has a singular similarity to the heresy of Manes, not only in attributing moral depravity to the corporeal frame, as such; but, also, in the recognition of an element in the constitution of man, which is neither corporeal nor purely spiritual. It is variously designated, as, “the animal and vital spirits,”–”the dispositions of the body,”–”the system of bodily appetites and propensities, with the fancy and imagination.” These are not allowed to be attributes of the soul; for, whilst the soul is described as created, and without native impurity, these are recognised as descending from Adam, depraved, and operating to the depravation of the soul. On the other hand, they certainly are not matter, nor phenomena of mere matter. In both this and the heresy of Manes, there is the same contrast of the immediately divine original of the soul, as compared with that of the body. In both, there is the same doctrine of the soul’s essential and original freedom from moral evil. In both, there is the same attributing of it to the material body; and the same associating with it of a tertium quid, which Manes represented as a sensuous soul, and the modern theory designates by the names of its several attributes, but describes in terms which identify it as the same. In both, this and the body are the agencies which embrace the soul as in a prison, and bring it under an involuntary and necessary defilement and guilt. “They having become irregular, excessive, and perverted by the fall,” says a highly respectable writer, “do unavoidably corrupt the soul, and enslave it to sin.”42
Unable to adequately attribute sin to either the body or the soul, Turretin is driven to the absurdity of assuming the existence of that which is neither material nor immaterial, neither physical nor spiritual. The existence of “vital and animal spirits” has no basis in Scripture, reason or reality.
Turretin expounds the second degree of propagation (T9, Q12, §IX):
The second degree is in the creation of the soul. Although created without any stain by God, still it is not created with original righteousness like the soul of Adam, in the image of God, but with a want of it as a punishment of the first sin. So that we must here distinguish between a soul pure, impure and not pure. That is called “pure” which is furnished with the habit of holiness; “impure” which as the contrary habit of unrighteousness; “not pure” which, although having no good habit, still has no bad habit, but is simply created with natural faculties (such as it is supposed to be created by God after the fall because the image of God, once lost by sin, cannot anymore be restored except by the blessing of regeneration through the Holy Spirit).
“Original righteousness” is an artificial construct, which we have already addressed. The soul is propagated with the body. As such, being propagated from the dead spirit of Adam, all are conceived in the state of spiritual death (separation from God), with the self-centered nature that results from spiritual death. This is the sin that is propagated, because the soul in which this sin inheres is propagated.
Turretin continues (§X):
Now although souls are created by God destitute of original righteousness, God cannot on that account be considered the author of sin. It is one thing to infuse impurity; another not to give the purity of which man has rendered himself unworthy in Adam. Nor is God bound to create pure souls; yea, he can most justly deprive them of such a gift as a punishment of the sin of Adam. This privation (although on the part of man culpable because it is a privation of due rectitude) still is not so with respect to God (because it is an act of vindicatory justice by which he avenges the first sin).
This is the purpose for which the idea of “original righteousness” was constructed–to avoid the force of the argument that God cannot create a soul tainted with sin or a sinful nature. Who is “man?” If the soul of every man is specially created by God, then the only relation one man has to another is that of having the same kind of human body, derived from the body of Adam. Is not man more than a body?–Indeed, is not the body the least important part of a man? Yet, this common physical body alone is seen as sufficient to see all men as one man, and to declare that “man has rendered himself unworthy in Adam.” However, spiritually, no one was in Adam but Adam himself. So then, how have all men rendered themselves unworthy by the fact that their bodies were in Adam? How can the source of my physical body bring any guilt or unworthiness on me, such that God can “most justly” punish me for the sin of Adam? And where is the propriety in using such strong terms as, “most justly,” when the ground of that justice is so putative and tenuous?
Turretin expounds the third degree of propagation (T9, Q12, §§XIII-XIV):
The third degree of propagation is in the union of the soul with the body. For then what had been sin only initiatively and radically becomes such formally and consummately. As man by that union is constituted in his being, so also sin is filled up; not only privatively (by a want of righteousness), but also positively (by the position of the contrary habit of unrighteousness).
Now it ought not to seem surprising if the soul is corrupted by the body, since Scripture and experience testify that the sympathy (sympatheian) between the soul and body is so great that as the body is affected by the soul, so also in turn the soul is affected by the body. Hence the morals of the soul are said to follow the temperament of the body. And Scripture asserts that the soul is weighed down by the corrupt body: “Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life” (Lk. 21:34). “For the corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things” (Wisd. 9:15).
The fact that the body can be physically affected by the soul does not establish that the soul can be morally affected by the body. While Turretin asserts that “the morals of the soul are said to follow the temperament of the body,” we do not find it said by any other than those, like him, who hold the body in Gnostic contempt. His appeal to Scripture for support of the idea that “the soul is weighed down by the corrupt body” utterly fails. The lone text he presents, Luke 21:34, speaks of the possibility of a heart being “overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life,” but does not in any way attribute these to the corruption or corrupting influence of the physical body. The other text he presents, from the Wisdom of Solomon, is not Scripture, but is an example of how far one must reach to find such a foothold.
Turretin seems to try to mitigate the inconsistency by stressing that the soul is not corrupted by the body in a direct way, but rather, the soul is corrupted by the sympathetic union of the two. Turretin (§XVI):
Far more fitly and truly do they speak who maintain that this is not brought about by any action of the body upon the soul (as if the body in acting and the soul in suffering were gradually depraved because original sin is of nature, not of action). Nor can the body rise beyond the sphere of its own activity so as to act upon a spirit immediately and physically; nor even by physical contact (as of liquor in a vessel) which cannot apply to an immaterial soul. Rather by the very strict connection of soul and body in one person, the intimate sympathy (sympatheian) of both, the mutual appetite for each other and the nice balancing (rhopen) by which they embrace most closely and affect each other, and as the body tends towards the soul as its perfection and good, so the soul tends towards the body as its own proper domicile and organ of its actions; and as the soul communicates its affections to the body, so the body communicates its dispositions to the soul, whence also results the diversity of inclinations in different men.
This added distance is insufficient to escape the Gnostic error. The soul can only be morally corrupted by such a sympathetic union with the body if the body has some morally corrupting qualities to contribute to the union. As explained above, this inconsistency results in attributing a metaphysical element to the body. Turretin continues (§XVII):
This can be done the more easily because (since the soul is deprived of original righteousness) it can no longer govern the body and hold it in subjection (which it could easily do in the state of integrity); but the image of God having been lost (which principally bestowed preeminence [hyperochen] upon it), the natural order is disturbed so that the flesh (which ought to obey) now commands, while the soul (which was made to govern) has now passed in some measure into the power of the other (subjected to the flesh and drawn downwards). Here not so much the order of nature as the law of divine justice, and its most just sanction is to be recognized, avenging by this evil of punishment that evil of criminality, by which our first parent willingly subverted the power of the spirit over the flesh.
The molecules, cells, and systems of the physical body do not seek to govern anything, have no moral will whatsoever, and have no comprehension of the immaterial soul. The conflict that Turretin is describing here as existing between the body and the soul is actually not of the body, but is the conflict between the flesh-focused nature and the spirit of the believer. The sinful nature of men is not due to the soul being subjected to the flesh, as if the soul really wants to act righteously but is prevented by the body. The body is just as much in subjection to the soul now as it was in Adam before he sinned. If a man commands his body to stand, does it not stand? If he commands his body to walk, does it not walk? If he commands it to say something proper, does it not say it? And if his body says something or does something improper, who but he has commanded it to do so? The natural desires of the body can provide points of temptation to the soul, but the moral decision remains with the soul. Adam’s sin did not put his soul into subjection to the body. Rather, his sin caused his spiritual death, by which his spiritual union with God was severed. Since communion with God was no longer part of his spiritual existence, Adam turned inward–the only direction available to him. No longer able to find spiritual satisfaction in God, man naturally seeks to find it through the body and the physical world. The body may seem to be in control, but only from the perspective of an assumed disagreement with the soul. If the sailors of a ship are lazy, unruly, and drunk at all hours, it cannot be called mutiny if the captain has given his permission for such behavior. Neither can the fleshly existence of a sinner be blamed on the rebellion of the body against the soul, or the subjection of the soul to the body. The soul revels in the flesh because it chooses to. The soul of the sinner is focused on the flesh and centered on the flesh because it cannot be focused or centered on the God with whom it has no union or connection. The sinner loves himself and his flesh, rather than God; nevertheless, every sin is without excuse.
Again, we are left to wonder how there could be a “most just sanction” in the law of divine justice, by which Adam’s criminality is avenged by punishing those who have no real connection to Adam other than being incarnated in a body that came from his. 2 Cor. 5:8 informs us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. When we physically die, the spirit leaves the body. Although loved ones mourn at the presence of the dead body, they mourn for a person who is now absent from that body. Just as we are absent from our own bodies after physical death, and have no participation in whatever happens to it, we were just as absent from Adam’s body when he used that body to sin against God and bring corruption into humanity and into the world–that is, unless we had a real presence within him that transcends the body.
[Currently unavailable.]
4. The Imputation of Adam’s Sin
[Currently unavailable.]
A. The Parallels of Spiritual Propagation
[Currently unavailable.]
B. The Nature of the Union in Christ
[Currently unavailable.]
Prior to the Cross, sinners could not be joined to Christ (or to God) through the Holy Spirit. It was only after Christ’s death that being joined to Christ would include being joined to His death. Christ brings the experience of that death with Him when He indwells the believer, and without it He cannot be joined to sinners. That experience is what is needed to counteract the sin and guilt of the sinner. Unless Christ brings to the union what is needed to deal with this sin and guilt, He cannot unite with the sinner, because Light has no union with darkness–holiness no union with guilt. This is the very reason for Adam’s spiritual death when he first sinned. Adam became a guilty sinner, and the Holy God could not remain in any union with him and remain holy. When Christ experienced His atoning sacrificial death, the gaining of that human experience was the gaining of the power of redemption, as He was then able to join Himself to any sinner.
In the Old Testament, faith of the believer came long before the sacrifice of Christ. Now, the faith of the believer comes long after the sacrifice of Christ. Yet, in the Old Testament, their faith justified them as it justifies us. However, in the Old Testament, though they were justified, justice had not yet been accomplished for them. In the Old Testament, God set aside His wrath temporarily, knowing the certainty that He would fulfill His promise to “provide Himself a Lamb,” in order to be in relationship with the Old Testament believers. His wrath is His will (and necessity) to punish sin, and while that still existed, provisions had already been made in His plan for the future propitiation; and so, God was able to overlook their sin and His wrath in the meantime. Though their sins were forgiven, it was done “on credit” so to speak–but it was on God’s good credit and not man’s, since what God has promised He will certainly bring to pass. Sins were forgiven, but not forgotten or atoned for; men were justified on faith, but justice was not yet satisfied. The necessity for the Cross of Christ remained. This is why it is written, “This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” (Rom 3:25b-26) The former sins (sins prior to the Cross) required divine forbearance because there was no atonement or sacrifice of propitiation yet. At the present time (the Cross and afterward) God showed Himself to be just, as well as the justifier. Prior to the Cross, He was the justifier, but His justice had not yet been shown.
Whether in the Old or New Testaments, God saved men through faith. “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness…” “…But the words ‘it was counted to him’ were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Though little was known of Christ in the Old Testament, the faith was in the same God of both testaments, and the righteousness that was accounted to those who believed was none other than the righteousness of the Christ who would one day come. But until this was accomplished within substantial reality, these saints of old remained captives of the demands of justice. This is why they did not immediately go to heaven when they died, but went instead to a place called paradise (or, “the bosom of Abraham”), which was a compartment in sheol, separated from the place of torment by “a great gulf.” At some point after Christ’s death, He brought the good news to the righteous in sheol, joined with them in an identifying spiritual union so that they would be fit for heaven, and took them to heaven. Heb 11:39 – 12:1,
And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…
They were not made perfect (“made complete” by receiving the indwelling of the promised Holy Spirit) before us in the New Testament, but neither were we (the New Testament Church) made perfect apart from them (they have also been made perfect). There are no more righteous souls in sheol, waiting to receive what was promised. This is a logical deduction, as the Scripture texts regarding sheol and the disposition of the Old Testament saints are sparse; but this fits with the available data far better than any other proposed explanation.
Although justification was prior to union with Christ, it cannot be adequately understood apart from union with Christ. Rather, justification is grounded on the absolute certainty of the divinely promised salvific union with Christ for those of faith. Justification is legal (forensic), and thus it is seemingly nominalistic. However, it is grounded in a union that is real and substantial, even when that union is in the future. Justification provides the initial legal judgment of our salvation, but the union with Christ provides the substance and reality of our salvation–the ground and basis for our justification. Baird also sees union with Christ as the basis for justification:
Another immediate result of union with Christ is, investiture in his righteousness, to our justification…
The ground of the justification of the elect,–the cause of the imputation to them of the righteousness of Christ,–is, their actual inbeing in Christ. They are “accepted in the Beloved,”–Eph. 1: 6,–because they really are in him. Christ’s righteousness is theirs, because he, whose is that righteousness, is theirs.82
Of course, now justification happens simultaneously with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, but in the Old Testament it preceded indwelling, waiting for Christ and the Cross. To be united to Christ is to be united with His death (Rom. 6:3). This is the distinction between being “justified by faith” and being “justified by His blood” (Rom. 5:9).
This vital basis of justification (union with Christ) has been often neglected in the battle between the Roman Catholic version of infused righteousness and the Reformed doctrine of an alien righteousness. Turretin, like all Reformed theologians, puts heavy emphasis on the forensic nature of the meaning of justification. However, the idea that this forensic verdict is ultimately putative and is the result of how God chooses to see the believer in spite of reality, is merely an assumption. Turretin (T16, Q1, §V):
Hence arises the question with the Romanists concerning the acceptation of this word–whether it is to be taken precisely in a forensic sense in this affair; or whether it ought also to be taken in a physical and moral sense for the infusion of righteousness and justification, if it is allowable (so to speak) either by the acquisition or the increase of it. For they do not deny that the word jusfiticatio and the verb justificare are often taken in a forensic sense, even in this matter… Yet they do not wish this to be the constant meaning, but that it often signifies a true production, acquisition or increase of righteousness; this is especially the case when employed about the justification of man before God… Now although we do not deny that this word has more than one signification and is taken in different ways in the Scriptures (now properly, then improperly, as we have already said), still we maintain that it is never taken for an infusion of righteousness, but as often as the Scriptures speak professedly about our justification, it always must be explained as a forensic term.
The meaning of the word, justification, is clearly forensic. But the deeper question remains: is that forensic verdict an accurate and true assessment of the believer when united to Christ, or is it a nominal and putative designation of a recategorization within God’s mind alone? The answer is found in our union with Christ. We are joined to Christ to the extent that we gain His identity in the eyes of justice. In that sense, the “infused“ identity does make us subjectively righteous (when the subject is the whole man, consisting of both the man and Christ in union), but only insofar as we are joined to Christ and it is His righteousness–already accomplished in His human life–that is the only righteousness in view. However, when we are joined to Christ, we are not joined to the extent that either is lost in the other. The union is sufficient to make us one with Christ in the eyes of justice, but the righteousness that is now ours remains the righteousness that He lived and not any righteousness that we live out or accomplish–in that sense it is still an alien righteousness. This infused identity is the substance and reality which our prior justification had in view. Turretin continues (T16, Q1, §VI):
The reasons are: (1) the passages which treat of justification admit no other than a forensic sense (cf. Job 9:3; Ps. 143:2; Rom. 3:28; 4:1-3; Acts 13:39 and elsewhere). A judicial process is set forth and mention is made of an accusing “law,” of “accused persons” who are guilty (hypodikoi, Rom. 3:19), of a “hand-writing” contrary to us (Col. 2:14), of divine “justice” demanding punishment (Rom. 3:24, 26), of an “advocate” pleading the cause (1 Jn. 2:1), of “satisfaction” and imputed righteousness (Rom. 4 and 5), of a “throne of grace” before which we are absolved (Heb. 4:16), of a “judge” pronouncing sentence (Rom. 3:20) and absolving sinners (Rom. 4:5).
All of this fits beautifully with the shared identity and spiritual union of Christ and the believer. The problem is that Turretin is so focused on combating the heresy of infused righteousness that he cannot see the truth of infused identity. Turretin continues (T16, Q1, §§VII and VIII):
(2) Justification is opposed to condemnation: “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth?” (Rom. 8:33, 34). As therefore accusation and condemnation occur only in a trial, so also justification. Nor can it be conceived how God can be said to condemn or to justify, unless either by adjudging to punishment or absolving us from it judicially…
(3) The equivalent phrases by which our justification is described are judicial: such as “not to come into judgment” (Jn. 5:24), “not to be condemned” (Jn. 3:18), “to remit sins,” “to impute righteousness” (Rom. 4), “to be reconciled” (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:19) and the like. (4) This word ought to be employed in the sense in which it was used by Paul in his disputation against the Jews. Yet it is certain that he did not speak there of an infusion of righteousness (viz., whether from faith or from the works of the law, the habit of righteousness should be infused into man), but how the sinner could stand before the judgment seat of God and obtain a right to life (whether by the works of the law, as the Jews imagined, or by faith in Christ). And since the thought concerning justification arose without doubt from a fear of divine judgment and of the wrath to come, it cannot be used in any other than a forensic sense (as it was used in the origin of those questions which were agitated in a former age upon the occasion of indulgences, satisfactions and remission of sins).
Although justification occurs “only in a trial,” we do not stand alone in that trial. Christ stands in us. Failure to apprehend this fact of reality is what caused N. T. Wright to claim, “Righteousness is not an object, a substance or a gas which can be passed across the courtroom.”69 The Holy Spirit can indeed move across the courtroom (and into the defendant) and carry the identity of Christ (and title to His righteousness) with Him. But the fact that must not be overlooked is that all of this does not happen only in some courtroom far removed from us, but rather, the believer is judged as he is in reality–right where he stands–as the piercing gaze of heaven’s Judge sees the Spirit of His Son inside him. Christ is the Intercessor within, standing in us on earth and reaching to heaven’s court. Turretin might not have conceived of this way of being justified, but it is thoroughly Biblical. Turretin continues (T16, Q1, §VIII):
(5) Finally, unless this word is taken in a forensic sense, it would be confounded with sanctification. But that these are distinct, both the nature of the thing and the voice of Scripture frequently prove.
It is true that justification is distinct from sanctification. But, again, the forensic sense is not necessarily the putative, nominal sense. It is true that the righteousness that we gain by faith is Christ’s alone, and does not make the sinner righteous in himself when viewed apart from Christ; however, it is also true that we are so joined to Christ as to never be apart from Him. Scripture tells us that we are so joined to Him as to be “one spirit with Him.” As for sanctification, the believer does still sin and should be continually progressing in holy living. But the demands that justice might have regarding any sin of the believer are ever met with the fait accompli of full satisfaction, since the life and Person of Christ is ever joined to the believer’s identity.
Turretin describes two ways by which a man can be made just (T16, Q1, §XIII):
“The justification of the wicked” of which Paul speaks (Rom. 4:5), ought not to be referred to an infusion or increase of habitual righteousness, but belongs to the remission of sins (as it is explained by the apostle from David). Nay, it would not be a justification of the wicked, if it were used in any other sense than for a judicial absolution at the throne of grace. I confess that God in declaring just ought also for that very reason to make just so that his judgment may be according to truth. But man can be made just in two ways: either in himself or in another; either from the law or from the gospel. God therefore makes him just whom he justifies; not in himself, as if from a sight of his inherent righteousness he declared him just, but from the view of the righteousness imputed–in Christ. It is indeed an abomination to Jehovah to justify the wicked without a due satisfaction, but God in this sense justifies no wicked one (Christ having been given to us as a surety who received upon himself the punishment we deserved).
This begs the question, how can being made just in another be “according to truth?” Although Turretin confesses the importance of truth in this matter, he merely assumes that a nominal, putative, “forensic” declaration of justification in the righteousness of another is satisfactory grounds for truth. But where is the substantial reality? A man can only be made just in another, according to truth, if both are so joined within reality as to become one. The law is not set aside by the gospel–on the contrary, it is fulfilled by the gospel. Justification through the gospel enables a man to be made just according to the law, as the man becomes one with his Savior.
Turretin again affirms that the judgment of God must be according to truth (T16, Q3, §III):
Hence it follows… that God cannot show favor to, nor justify anyone without a perfect righteousness. For since the judgment of God is according to truth, he cannot pronounce anyone just who is not really just. However, since no mortal after sin has such a righteousness in himself (nay, by sin he has been made a child of wrath and become exposed to death), it must be sought out of us in another, by the intervention of which man (sinful and wicked) may be justified without personal righteousness. Human courts often justify the guilty, either through ignorance (when the wickedness is not known and lies concealed) or by injury (when it is not attended to) or by iniquity (when it is approved). But in the divine court (in which we deal with the most just Judge, who neither holds the guilty as innocent, nor the innocent as guilty) this cannot occur. Therefore he who is destitute of personal righteousness ought to have another’s, by which to be justified. For although God (as the supreme arbiter of affairs and the sovereign Lord of all) has the power to remit the punishment of sinners, still he cannot (because he is most just) thus favor the sinner, unless a satisfaction is first made by which both his justice may be satisfied and punishment taken of sin. Since this could not come from us who are guilty, it was to be sought in another, who (constituted a surety in our place by receiving upon himself the punishment due to us) might bestow the righteousness (dikaioma) of which we were destitute.
Justice demands more than that sin be punished. It demands that the one who sinned be punished. If God “cannot pronounce anyone just who is not really just,” then He cannot pronounce that justice has been satisfied when the sinner has not been punished. Neither are according to truth. More must be done. Though the saving righteousness “must be sought out of us in another,” it cannot be bestowed on us if that other is to remain “out of us”–the Righteous One must be brought into us in reality, “according to truth.”
Turretin continues (T16, Q3, §XXIII):
What is imputed to anyone by a mere gracious acceptation, that is not really paid, but is considered as paid; but what is imputed on account of a true payment made by another supposes the thing to be paid. Now the imputation of the righteousness of Christ (of which we speak) is not to be understood in the first sense (the improper sense, for an imputation which takes place without any payment at all whether of the debtor or of the surety); but is to be understood in the latter sense inasmuch as it is founded in another’s payment (that of Christ the surety).
Unless the Surety and the debtor are so united as to become one man in the eyes of justice, it remains but a mere gracious acceptation that the payment of the Surety is accepted in the place of the debtor. Justice has no place for such gracious acceptation. Turretin (T16, Q7, §VIII), in denying that faith is considered our righteousness “by a gracious acceptation,” makes a comment here that is germane: “For in the court of divine justice (which demands an adequate and absolutely perfect payment), there cannot be room for a gracious acceptation which is an imaginary payment.” Just as there cannot be room in the court of divine justice for an imaginary payment, neither can there be room for an imaginary union on which to ground the efficiency and particularity of this payment. In order for the exacted payment to be applied to a particular sinner, there must be a real union between the two.
Turretin (T16, Q3, §IV):
The gospel teaches that what could not be found in us and was to be sought in another, could be found nowhere else than in Christ, the God-man (theanthropo); who taking upon himself the office of surety most fully satisfied the justice of God by his perfect obedience and thus brought to us an everlasting righteousness by which alone we can be justified before God; in order that covered and clothed with that garment as though it were of our first-born (like Jacob), we may obtain under it the eternal blessing of our heavenly Father.
We are not clothed with the garment of Christ’s righteousness alone. We are clothed with Christ Himself (Gal. 3:27; Rom. 13:14). Turretin speaks to the union in Christ (T16, Q3, §§V-VI):
Further, as long as Christ is outside of us and we are out of Christ, we can receive no fruit from another’s righteousness. God willed to unite us to Christ by a twofold bond–one natural, the other mystical–in virtue of which both our evils might be transferred to Christ and the blessings of Christ pass over to us and become ours. The former is the communion of nature by the incarnation. By this, Christ, having assumed our flesh, became our brother and true God and could receive our sins upon himself and have the right to redeem us. The latter is the communion of grace by mediation. By this, having been made by God a surety for us and given to us for a head, he can communicate to us his righteousness and all his benefits. Hence it happens that as he was made of God sin for us by the imputation of our sins, so in turn we are made the righteousness of God in him by the imputation of his obedience (2 Cor. 5:21).
…Just as Christ sustains a twofold relation (schesin) to us of surety and head (of surety, to take away the guilt of sin by a payment made for it; of head, to take away its power and corruption by the efficacy of the Spirit), so in a twofold way Christ imparts his blessings to us, by a forensic imputation, and a moral and internal infusion. The former flows from Christ as surety and is the foundation of our justification. The latter depends upon him as head, and is the principle of sanctification. For on this account, God justifies us because the righteousness of our surety, Christ, is imputed to us. And on this account we are renewed because we derive the Spirit from our head, Christ, who renews us after the image of Christ and bestows upon us inherent righteousness.
Turretin acknowledges here that we cannot benefit from Christ’s righteousness “as long as Christ is outside of us and we are out of Christ.” But he goes on to describe and define this union in terms which do not adequately fulfill this requirement. He describes our union with Christ as “a twofold bond,” one “natural” and the other “mystical.” The natural bond he puts forth as the incarnation of Christ, by which Christ assumed our flesh. While this was vitally necessary in order for Christ to be qualified to identify with men, act in our place, and join with us in actual union, the incarnation in itself is not a union with us. Even as a fellow man, Christ remains outside of us and we remain outside of Him.
The second part of the twofold bond, the “mystical,” Turretin calls “the communion of grace by mediation.” Turretin says that by this mystical bond Christ communicates his righteousness “and all his benefits” to us. He explains that, by this mystical bond, these blessings are imparted to us in a twofold way: “by a forensic imputation;” and by “a moral and internal infusion.” The former is the “foundation of justification,” while the latter is the “principle of sanctification.” Turretin’s view leaves the actual, spiritual union with Christ as responsible for nothing else than renewing us after the image of Christ and bestowing upon us the inherent righteousness of sanctification. Although he seems, at first glance, to attribute the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to a mystical union of Christ and the believer, only half of the bond that he calls “mystical” is mystical in the sense of spiritual union. The other half of what he calls “mystical” is simply putative and nominally forensic–an imputation not based on Christ in us or we in Him.
Turretin defends his view of imputation and justification against the charge that it is “putative or fictitious” (T16, Q3, §VIII):
But here we must accurately distinguish between imputed and putative or fictitious in order to meet the calumny of our opponents who traduce this imputation as a mere fiction of the mind about a thing not existing. For it is a thing no less real in its own order (to wit, judicial and forensic) than infusion in a moral or physical order; as the imputation of a payment made by a surety to the debtor is in the highest degree real (to wit, by which he is freed from the debt and delivered from the right which the creditor had over him). Hence it is evident that this judicial act of God does not lack truth because he does not pronounce us righteous in ourselves (which would be false), but in Christ (which is perfectly true); nor does it lack justice because there is granted a communion between us and Christ, which is the solid foundation of this imputation.
As we saw in the preceding sections, the only communion between us and Christ which Turretin understands to be “the solid foundation of this imputation” is that half of the “communion of grace by mediation” which is merely nominal–God choosing to view Christ as our Surety. Thus, the foundation of this imputation is no more solid than the imputation itself: God chooses to do one thing based on God choosing to do the other.
The reality of the exacting of an appropriate payment from the Savior is not in question. Neither is the truth of the righteousness of Christ in question. The question regards the reality of the righteousness being imputed to us–not the reality of God’s intentions but the reality of the result. The question is not about whether God’s accounting of us as righteous is an accounting that really does happen within God’s mind. The question is whether God’s accounting of us as righteous is an accurate assessment of us in reality. Turretin falters here by affirming the reality of the accounting rather than addressing the reality of the righteousness once transferred. Thus, he answers, “…it is a thing no less real in its own order (to wit, judicial and forensic)…” What he fails to distinguish is that “its own order” is an order consisting only of thoughts within the mind of the Judge. Can the Judge assign whatever condition to the debtor that He chooses, regardless of the facts of substantial reality? If so, then why did Christ become a man and die? Could not the Judge simply choose to extinguish the debt and impute Christ’s righteousness regardless of the fact that there was no atoning sacrifice on Calvary? Therefore, the argument that the forensic imputations within the mind of God supply their own reality is completely without substance. The needed substance is found in the substantial reality of the union of Christ and the believer, accomplished by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Turretin expands on what he sees as two kinds of righteousness (T16, Q2, §II):
However, we must premise here that God, the just Judge (dikaiokriten), cannot pronounce anyone just and give him a right to life except on the ground of some perfect righteousness which has a necessary connection with life; but that righteousness is not of one kind. For as there are two covenants which God willed to make with men–the one legal and the other of grace–so also there is a twofold righteousness–legal and evangelical. Accordingly there is also a double justification or a double method of standing before God in judgment–legal and evangelical. The former consists in one’s own obedience or a perfect conformity with the law, which is in him who is to be justified; the latter in another’s obedience or a perfect observance of the law, which is rendered by a surety in the place of him who is to be justified–the former in us, the latter in Christ…
Hence a twofold justification flows: one in the legal covenant by one’s own righteousness according to the clause, “Do this and live”; the other in the covenant of grace, by another’s righteousness (Christ’s) imputed to us and apprehended by faith according to the clause, “Believe and thou shalt be saved.” Each demands a perfect righteousness. The former requires it in the man to be justified, but the latter admits the vicarious righteousness of a surety. The former could have place in a state of innocence, if Adam had remained in innocence. But because after sin it became impossible to man, we must fly to the other (i.e, the gospel), which is founded upon the righteousness of Christ.
A perfect righteousness is no ground on which to pronounce anyone just unless that perfect righteousness is found within the man himself. The vicarious righteousness of a surety is only admitted because that Surety lives within the man, joined to him in spiritual union. It is also important to note here that Turretin seems to be defining righteousness by covenant. Nominalism tends toward the denial of intrinsic rightness and wrongness, and prefers a mutually agreed upon contract as a set standard.
Turretin says (T16, Q2, §XIII), “…if we are justified in another, we cannot be justified in ourselves.” While this holds true when we are considered in ourselves as distinct from Christ, we can indeed be justified in One who is in us.
Turretin says (T16, Q2, §XV), “…Legal justification takes place in no other way than by inherent righteousness, whether actual or habitual; gospel justification is to be sought not in us, but in another. This the apostle clearly teaches when he wishes ‘to be found in Christ’ (to wit, in the judgment of God) ‘not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ’ (Phil. 3:9) (i.e., not an inherent righteousness, arising from an observance of the law and which is called ours because it is in us and is perfected by our actions, but the righteousness of God and Christ, imputed to us and apprehended by faith).” Turretin qualifies the phrase, “to be found in Christ,” with, “to wit, in the judgment of God.” This misses the force of the apostle’s meaning, by replacing the substance of a spiritual union with nothing more substantial than “the judgment of God.” We are in Christ because Christ really is in us. God’s judgment in finding us “in Christ” is an accurate and true judgment of our state within substantial reality. It is not a mere decision to put us into the category of “in Christ.” Thus, the righteousness of Christ is accounted to us because it really is in us, since Christ is in us. This righteousness is apprehended by faith insofar as it is faith that brings the indwelling Holy Spirit and union with Christ.
Turretin points to the parallel with Adam (T16, Q2, §XIX):
Christ by his obedience is rightly said “to constitute” us “righteous,” not by an inherent but by an imputed righteousness as is taught in Rom. 4:6 and gathered from the opposition of the antecedent condemnation (Rom. 5:19). For they are no less constituted righteous before God who, on account of the obedience of Christ imputed to them, are absolved from deserved punishment, than they who on account of the disobedience of Adam are constituted unrighteous (i.e., are exposed to death and condemnation). If Adam constituted us unrighteous effectively by a propagation of inherent depravity (on account of which we are also exposed to death in the sight of God), it does not follow equally that Christ constitutes us righteous by a forensic justification at the bar of God by inherent righteousness given to us by him. The design of the apostle (which alone is to be regarded) does not have this direction. He only wishes to disclose the foundation of the connection between being exposed to death and the right to life, from our union with the first and second Adam, as to the thing (although the mode is different on account of the difference in the subject). The “abundance of grace and of righteousness” (perisseia tes charitos kai dikaisynes, Rom. 5:17) does not denote habitual grace or inherent righteousness, but the abundance of divine mercy and the infinite treasury of righteousness, which believers obtain in the obedience of the Mediator. And this gift is said to be greater than the sin of Adam because the grace of God giving us the righteousness of Christ, not only took away the guilt of one transgression, but of all actual sins (as Thomas Aquinas well remarks on this passage). Nor does it press us more that we are said “to receive abundance of grace” (Rom. 5:17) because we receive it by the hand of faith, not that it becomes ours by way of infusion or of inhesion, but by way of imputation.
Turretin only sees two possible modes by which the defining act of a head can constitute the members unrighteous or righteous: by an inherent quality, and “by way of imputation.” This misses entirely the mode of the shared identity involved in an immaterial (spiritual) union. We are made sinners naturally, rather than by imputation, not primarily because of inherent depravity but because it is we who sinned when Adam sinned. We are made righteous not by inherent righteousness, but because we are so joined to the Christ within us that we can in a true and real sense declare, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me…”
Turretin continues (T16, Q3, §IX):
Therefore, when we say that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us for justification and that we are just before God through imputed righteousness and not through any righteousness inherent in us, we mean nothing else than that the obedience of Christ rendered in our name to God the Father is so given to us by God that it is reckoned to be truly ours and that it is the sole and only righteousness on account of and by the merit of which we are absolved from the guilt of our sins and obtain a right to life; and that there is in us no righteousness or good works by which we can deserve such great benefits which can bear the severe examination of the divine court, if God willed to deal with us according to the rigor of his law; that we can oppose nothing to it except the merit and satisfaction of Christ, in which alone, terrified by the consciousness of sin, we can find a safe refuge against the divine wrath and peace for our souls.
The obedience of Christ cannot be given to us except Christ Himself be given to us. It is because Christ is within us that His righteousness is “reckoned to be truly ours,” giving us “a safe refuge against the divine wrath and peace for our souls.”
Turretin says (T16, Q3, §XV), “The act of one cannot be made the act of many, except by imputation.” This is insufficient. The act of one cannot be imputed to the many according to truth and reality, except by uniting the one and the many in a personally identifying spiritual union. It is not enough for justice to be satisfied that a penalty has been exacted and requirements met: the sinner and Savior must be so joined together that justice is satisfied that the two are one in reality. God can sovereignly accept something less than this, but He cannot justly accept it.
Just as Turretin misses the identifying aspect of spiritual union with Christ, holding out nominal imputation and inherent righteousness as the only two possible conclusions, he misses the identifying aspect of the spiritual union of origin in Adam, holding out nominal imputation and propagated sin as the only alternatives. From the same section, he says: “The condemnation (katakrima) to which the justification of life (dikaiosis zoes) is opposed, is not a physical, but a forensic and judicial act… Nor if we are constituted unrighteous and guilty by sin propagated from Adam, ought we at once to be justified by inherent righteousness communicated to us through regeneration by Christ because there is a very different reason for each…” On the Adam side, he denies traducianism, which provides not only the propagated results of sin but the propagation of a participative culpability in the original offense, through a shared identity of spiritual union in the original man. This shared spiritual identity in the union in the first man points us to the shared identity of the sinner and Christ in the new man. Baird comments on this parallel and the mode of identity:
We have seen the zeal with which the position is maintained, that the doctrine of imputation “does not include the idea of a mysterious identity of Adam and his race.” By parity of reason it should not include the idea of a mysterious identity between Christ and his people. And accordingly, in the system presented in the review [by Charles Hodge, of Baird's book, The Elohim Revealed], the relation which in the Scriptures and our standards, the mystical union sustains to justification is ignored, and the doctrine represented as complete without it, and to the exclusion of it. “Christ in the covenant of redemption, is constituted the head and representative of his people; and, in virtue of this federal union, and agreeably to the terms of the eternal covenant, they are regarded and treated as having done what he did and suffered what he suffered in their name and in their behalf.” According to our understanding of the Scriptures, it was provided in the eternal covenant that the elect should be actually ingrafted into Christ by his Spirit, and their acceptance and justification is by virtue of this their actual union to him. “This principle is not to be so understood as though the character thus conveyed were the meritorious cause of the relations predicated; as if the believer were justified by the personal righteousness which he receives through the power of Christ’s Spirit given to him. On the contrary, the union, which is constituted by virtue of the transmission of the nature, itself conveys a proprietary title in the moral and legal relations of the head; whilst the efficient principle which thus unites, is also fruitful in effects appropriate to the nature whence it flows. Thus, the sin of Adam, and the righteousness of Christ are severally imputed to their seed, by virtue of the union, constituted in the one case by the principle of natural generation, and in the other, by ‘the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,’ the Holy Spirit, the principle of regeneration. At the same time, the power by which the union is in these cases severally wrought produces likeness to the head.” [The Elohim Revealed, p. 317]83
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XX):
Sixth, our justification is “a justification of the ungodly but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness” (Rom. 4:5). A justification of the ungodly cannot be made by infusion, but by imputation. For although he that is justified does not remain wicked, but is renewed by the grace of Christ, he cannot be said to be justified by that renovation (which is the effect following justification, not the cause which precedes it). And faith, by which man is justified and is made righteous in Christ, does not prevent him from being and being called wicked in himself, inasmuch as he is opposed to the one working as he who has nothing upon which he can rely before the divine tribunal for his justification and so is “ungodly,” partly antecedently; partly with respect to justification; not however concomitantly, still less consequently.
Justification of the ungodly cannot be made by infusion, but it is made by an indwelling spiritual union. It is not the renewed morality of sanctification that justifies, but the renewed identity (the “new man”) that is formed from Christ and the believer. While the saved man has nothing of his own (apart from Christ) to offer as a meritorious righteousness, he has everything of Christ’s to offer as a meritorious righteousness, since the union entitles him to all of Christ’s human experiences and accomplishments.
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XXII):
Christ ought not only to restore the goods lost in Adam, but also to remove the evils contracted through Adam. Now there were two–guilt and corruption of nature–to which two goods should be opposed: the imputation of righteousness to take away guilt before God; and a renovation of nature to heal inherent corruption. Again, Christ not only restored the lost goods, but in a far more excellent way. We lost mutable righteousness, but an immutable righteousness is restored to us. We lost only an inherent righteousness and there is given us an imputed righteousness with an inherent, without which we could not be made partakers of the inherent. Otherwise if nothing was restored in Christ than what had been lost in Adam, pardon of sin would not be given to us in Christ because it was not lost in Adam.
When Adam sinned, he became guilty and spiritually dead (disunited from God). To be spiritually disunited from God is a corruption of nature in that human nature was created to be in union with God; and it is also a corruption in that it is the source of self-centered, self-willed tendencies and inevitably leads to more sin. In answer to the guilt, Christ provides atonement for sin and the imputation of His righteousness–both are provided through His restoration of spiritual union with God. What Christ restores is far greater than what was lost. We lost a conditional union with God, but we gain an everlasting union! We lost a mutable innocence, but we gain an immutable righteousness!
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XXVI):
Although God justifies us on account of the imputed righteousness of Christ, his judgment does not cease to be according to truth because he does not pronounce us righteous in ourselves subjectively (which would be false), but in another imputatively and relatively (which is perfectly true). Thus God truly estimates the thing and judges it as it is; not in itself and in its own nature, but in Christ.
Truth devoid of substantial reality loses all real meaning. By Turretin’s reasoning here, the only truth established is the truth that God pronounces us righteous, not the truth that we are righteous. God justifies us on account of the fact that He has pronounced us righteous in Christ; and this is said to be a true estimate of the thing as it is–yet neither the thing itself nor the estimate exists anywhere other than within God’s mind.
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XXX):
As the disobedience of Adam truly constituted us sinners by imputation, so also the righteousness of Christ truly justifies us by imputation. Thus “imputed” is properly opposed to “inherent,” but not to “true” because we do not invent an imputation consisting in a mere opinion and fiction of law; but one which is in the highest sense real and true. Yet this truth belongs to imputation, not to infusion; is juridical, not moral.
There is a definite parallel in how Adam constituted us sinners and how Christ constitutes us righteous. However, it is an abuse of terms to say that something which consists only of thought “is in the highest sense real and true.” It may be argued that what is in the highest sense real and true is the fact that God so views men in these ways; but such an argument does nothing to establish that God’s view in the case is a view which is in the highest sense real and true. This is not to contend that God’s view is ever false. Rather, it is to contend that such imputations do not supply their own validity and truth, but correspond to appropriate changes within substantial reality that are the ground of such imputations. Adam’s sin was racially imputed to mankind precisely because all mankind existed within Adam when he sinned. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believer because Christ exists within that believer. That is truth in its highest and real sense.
This parallel of the headship of Adam and that of Christ is the most valuable result of the realistic paradigm; however, most realists did not recognize it as such, and so it was not developed to its logical end. Baird was an exception. He saw that union with Christ was the ground of imputed righteousness, just as union with Adam was the ground of imputed sin. He also understood why the idea of a shared identity through spiritual union with Christ is so consistently ignored:
If the imputation of Christ’s righteousness be founded in a real inbeing in him, wrought by the uniting power of his Spirit in regeneration,–if it is thus that we are brought within the provisions of the covenant of grace to our justification, it follows, (we will venture the word,) incontestably, that the imputation to us of Adam’s sin, is founded in a real inbeing in him, by natural generation, by virtue of which we come under the provisions of the covenant of works, to our condemnation. But this, according to our reviewer [Hodge], is “simply a physiological theory,” involving “a mysterious identity,” which he cannot admit. Hence the necessity of ignoring the doctrine, in its relation to justification.84
The excessively philosophical and naturalistic terms that are characteristic of most realists have served to obscure this parallel relationship of union to identity. Viewing the union in Adam as a union of species and a union of nature has hindered the recognition of the parallel of spiritual unions, and provided a reason for objections by the nominalists. Murray makes such an objection:
The analogy instituted in Romans 5:12-19 (cf. I Cor. 15:22) presents a formidable objection to the realist construction. It is admitted by the realist that there is no “realistic” union between Christ and the justified. That is to say, there is no human nature, specifically and numerically one, existing in its unity in Christ, which is individualized in those who are the beneficiaries of Christ’s righteousness. On realist premises, therefore, a radical disparity must be posited between the character of the union that exists between Adam and his posterity, on the one hand, and the union that exists between Christ and those who are his, on the other… This sustained emphasis not only upon the one man Adam and the one man Christ but also upon the one trespass and the one righteous act points to a basic identity in respect of modus operandi. But if, in the one case, we have a oneness that is focused in the unity of the human nature, which realism posits, and, in the other case, a oneness that is focused in the one man Jesus Christ, where no such unity exists, it is difficult not to believe that discrepancy enters at the very point where similitude must be maintained. For, after all, on realist assumptions, it is not our union with Adam that is the crucial consideration in our involvement in his sin but our involvement in the sin of that human nature which existed in Adam. And what the parallelism of Romans 5:12-19 would indicate is that the one sin of the one man Adam is analogous on the side of condemnation to the one righteousness of the one man Jesus Christ on the side of justification. The kind of relationship that obtains in the one case obtains in the other. And how can this be if the kind of relationship is so different in respect of the nature of the union subsisting?80
There is indeed a realistic union between Christ and the justified. As in Adam, this realistic union is a union of spirit. As was addressed in sect. III.A. (The Parallels of Spiritual Propagation), the parallel has an inverse quality: the spirit of Adam is propagated to all, while the spirits of the many are collected back into one head, Christ. We are generated out of Adam and regenerated into Christ. The “modus operandi” is that of a shared personal identity. While mankind was still within Adam, mankind shared the personal identity of Adam, and shared the ownership of his defining action (his sin). When a man is joined to the Spirit of Christ, he shares the personal identity of Christ such that he gains an ownership in His defining action (His obedience and death). We are joined to Adam’s sin because we were joined to Adam at the time of his sin; but we are joined to Christ’s death because we are joined to Christ now. Since Adam’s “seed” are propagated by dispersion, it was necessary that we be united in Adam during his defining action. But Christ’s “seed” are propagated by annexation, rather than by dispersion, and so we need not be united in Christ during his defining action. Unlike the case of Adam, when the Spirit of Christ is propagated to a believer, the Person of Christ is also propagated. It is not merely a spirit derived from Christ that indwells us, but the Person of Christ Himself. Therefore, it is sufficient for our ownership in His defining action that the Christ within us now is the same Christ who died on the Cross. This objection of the nominalist, then, is utterly overturned, and the parallel stands more vividly than ever before.
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XVII):
Third, Christ is the righteousness by which we are justified. For on this account he is said to “be made of God unto us righteousness” (1 Cor. 1:30) and we are said to be made the righteousness of God in him: “God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:21). From this it is evident: (a) that Christ is our righteousness before God, not surely inherently (because the righteousness of one cannot pass over into another), but imputatively; (b) we are made the righteousness of God in him, just as he is made sin for us. Now Christ was made sin for us, not inherently or subjectively (because he knew no sin), but imputatively (because God imputed to him our sins and made the iniquities of us all to meet on him, Is. 53:6). Therefore, we also are made righteousness, not by infusion, but by imputation. Augustine well expresses this: “He, therefore, was sin, that we might be righteousness, nor ours, but God’s, nor in us, but in him, as he demonstrated sin, not his own, but ours, nor in himself, but in us constituted in the likeness of sinful flesh in which he was crucified” (Enchiridion13 [41] [FC 2:406-7; PL 40.253])…
The righteousness of one can indeed pass over into another if the Righteous One Himself passes over into another. God made Christ to be sin for us in the sense that He made Him to be a sin sacrifice for us. The Hebrew uses the single word for sin as the word for sin sacrifice, and Paul is using a play on words in 2 Cor. 5:21. He was made sin “for us,” that we might be made righteous “in him.” The exact parallel that Turretin sees is not there. Christ was made a sin sacrifice for us that we might be made “the righteousness of God” by union in Him.
Turretin (T16, Q3, §XVIII):
Fourth, justification takes place on account of the suretyship of Christ and the payment made for us by him–which cannot be done without imputation. For as a payment made by a surety for a debtor cannot help him except by imputation (inasmuch as the payment made by a surety is applied to him as if it had been made by himself), the cancelling of the debt follows and the deliverance of the debtor. Thus since Christ undertook to be our surety and paid in our place, who does not see that the payment made by him and the ransom (lytron) given is imputed to us for full absolution (i.e., is considered by God as if it had been given by us)? In this sense, we are said to be “justified by the death and blood of Christ” (Rom. 5:9) because the merit of his obedience and death was that in view of which God was reconciled and gave to us the pardon of sin. In the same sense, he is said “to have been made a curse and sin for us, that we might be made a blessing and righteousness in him” (Gal. 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:21) because the curse and punishment of sin which he received upon himself in our stead secures to us blessing and righteousness with God in virtue of that most strict union between us and him by which, as our sins are imputed to him, so in turn his obedience and righteousness are imputed to us. Just as under the law the punishment which the victims suffered in the place of sinners was imputed to them for the expiation of sin and their liberation.
When God imputes the righteousness of Christ to us, God actually sees us with that righteousness. Did God ever see Christ with our guilt? During the entire ordeal of the Cross, God never forgot that this was His Son in whom He was “well-pleased.” When, as the representationists hold, God imputes Adam’s sin to us, or imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, it is not a tranfer that removes what is imputed from the source–Adam still had his sin and Christ still has his righteousness. Such imputations merely share the sin or righteousness of the source, and do not take it away from that source. Nowhere in Scripture is it written that our sins were imputed to Christ. He bore the penalty of our sin, but He did not bear the guilt. To bear sin is to bear the penalty due for sin. Turretin says (T16, Q3, §XXIV), “Christ cannot (on account of our sin having been imputed to him) be called a sinner (which implies inherent corruption), but only a victim for sin, who received on himself the punishment due to sin. Thus guilt was taken away, not its pollution.”
The language of surety and debtor, payment and debt, are mere figures to illustrate the deeper spiritual truth. The payment and debt are owed to justice for our crimes. Unlike a creditor, justice will not accept payment from any other than the criminal. Not only will the Surety have to pay the penalty due us, He will also have to spiritually indwell us and unite with us in one identity. Only then can the payment made by the Surety be applied to us as if we had made it. Only then can that ransom be “considered by God as if it has been given by us.” “The curse and punishment of sin which he received upon himself in our stead secures to us blessing and righteousness with God” only when we are united to Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit when we come by faith.
The idea of the imputation of our sins to Christ comes from the misunderstanding of atonement as concurrent with sacrifice, which will be addressed in section D, below. It is the satisfaction of our sin-debt–the suffering of the complete penalty–that extinguishes our sin-debt right where it is, in us, when we are united to Christ. In virtue of our spiritual union with the indwelling Christ, as His obedience and righteousness are imputed to us as if we had accomplished them, so also His suffering of our penalty is imputed to us as if we had suffered it. This saving imputation is grounded on an identifying spiritual union that makes the two one man in reality and in the eyes of justice.
Turretinn (T16, Q3, §XIX):
…Being made like sinful flesh (yet without sin), he offered himself for us as a victim for sin and having made a most full satisfaction condemned sin (i.e., perfectly expiated it) in the flesh for this end–that the condemnation of sin might give place to our justification and the righteousness of the law (to dikaioma nomou) (i.e., the right which it has) whether as to obedience or as to punishment is fulfilled in us (not inherently, but imputatively); while what Christ did and suffered in our place is ascribed to us as if we had done that very thing. Thus we are considered in Christ to have fulfilled the whole righteousness of the law because in our name he most perfectly fulfilled that righteousness of the law as to obedience as well as to punishment.
What Christ did and suffered does not come to be seen in the eyes of justice as having been in our place until we are put in Christ and He in us. What He did and suffered was not vicarious (in the eyes of justice) by an a priori assignment, but it was vicarious by an a posteriori effect of spiritual union. We must not confuse justice with God’s plan or decree. God has planned to satisfy justice through the Cross for each of the elect; but until they come to faith and are joined to Christ, justice is not satisfied in their cases. The planning is not the accomplishing, and justice does not measure according to plan but according to reality. It is only after a man is joined to Christ that what Christ did and suffered is ascribed to that man as if he had done and suffered that very thing.
[Currently unavailable.]
[To be continued...]
Footnotes:
1 Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, (Phillipsburg: P & R, 1992)
2 Scripture quotations marked ESV are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles/Good News Publishers, 2007).
3 Edgar Allen Poe, “A Dream Within a Dream,” The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, (New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006), p. 84
4 Samuel J. Baird, The First Adam and the Second: The Elohim Revealed in the Creation and Redemption of Man, (Phila.: Parry & McMillan, 1860), p. 12
5 Ibid., pp. 14-15
6 William G. T. Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine (Birmingham: SGCB, 2006), vol. 2, p. 15
7 Baird, pp. 16-17
8 Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 2, pp. 15-16
9 Baird, p. 20
10 Ibid., pp. 25-26
11 Ibid., p. 28
12 Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine, vol. 2, pp. 23-24
13 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 452
14 Ibid., p. 452
15 Robert W. Landis, The Doctrine of Original Sin (Richmond: Whittet & Shepperson, 1884), pp. 81-82
16 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 448, 449
17 Baird, p. 50
18 There were a few at that time who disagreed with Hodge’s complete capitulation to nominalistic representation, such as William G. T. Shedd, Samuel J. Baird, James H. Thornwell, Robert J. Breckenridge, and Robert W. Landis. However, in the end, it was Hodge’s system that won the day and became the norm.
19 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 453
20 Baird, p. 330
21 Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver and Charles Augustus Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906)
22 Baird, p. 359
23 Ibid., p. 360
24 Robert Culver, Systematic Theology, (Great Britain: Christian Focus, 2006), p. 278
25 Phillip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1886), Series I Vol. 1, (St. Augustine, Letter CLXVI to Jerome), p. 531
26 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 444
27 Schaff, p. 531
28 Baird, p. 354
29 Ibid., p. 384
30 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 441
31 Gordon H. Clark, The Atonement (Jefferson: Trinity Foundation, 1987), p. 121
32 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 442
33 Baird, p. 370
34 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, 3rd ed., (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2003), p. 439
35 Baird, p. 346, 350
36 James p. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology, chap. XX, sect. IV, www.reformedreader.org/rbb/boyce/aos/chapter20.htm
37 Ibid.
38 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 477-478
39 Baird, p. 378
40 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 441-442
41 Ibid., p. 478
42 Baird, p. 379
43 John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray (Carlisle: Banner of Truth Trust, 2001), pp. 49-50
44 Baird, pp. 308-309
45 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 447
46 Augustus H. Strong, Systematic Theology (Phila.: Judson, 1907), Vol. II, p. 630
47 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 437
48 Baird, p. 378
49 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 448
50 Ibid., pp. 437-438
51 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 431
52 Ibid., pp. 433-434
53 Ibid., p. 440
54 Ibid., p. 443
55 Ibid., p. 444
56 Ibid., pp. 447-448
57 Ibid., pp. 452-453
58 Ibid., pp. 469-470
59 Ibid., pp. 489-490
60 Ibid., p. 490
61 Ibid., p. 471
62 Ibid., p. 473
63 Baird, pp. 340-341
64 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, pp. 475-476
65 Strong, Vol. II, pp. 757-758
66 John W. Nevin, The Mystical Presence (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2000), pp. 53-54
67 Arthur W. Pink, The Satisfaction of Christ, (Forest City, NC: Truth for Today, 1955), www.pbministries.org/books/pink/Satisfaction/sat_06.htm
68 Strong, Vol. II, p. 709
69 N. T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), p. 98
70 Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, p. 448
71 Leon Morris, The Cross in the New Testament, (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006), p. 401
72 Ibid., pp. 399-400
73 Ibid., pp. 404-406
74 Ibid., pp. 415-416
75 Ibid., p. 401
76 Ibid., pp. 402-403
77 Ibid., p. 402
78 John Murray, Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), p. 15
79 Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), pp. 825-826
80 John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1959), pp. 33-34
81 Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998), p. 738
82 Baird, pp. 642-643
83 Baird, A Rejoinder to The Princeton Review, upon The Elohim Revealed, (Phila.: Joseph M. Wilson, 1860), pp. 32-33
84 Ibid., p. 34
Well, Dec. 15 is here already. The article is not quite finished, but there is good progress. I could end the revision and expansion prematurely, just for the sake of meeting the self-imposed deadline; but it’s worth doing well. So I will continue for now, and complete it as quickly as I can.
If the “person” who is Adam did not give life/existence to the “person” of his son then he is not really his father.
If the “person” preexisted or was created from an essence not personal to Adam or arose as the result of the physical processes of the brain then Adam is not the father of that “person”.
If the person was created by God at conception/gestation then Adam is not the father of that “person”.
The essence that makes Adam a person, (the essence that engenders the “I”) must be transmitted to his son in order for Adam to be the father of that person.
One person giving life/existence to another person, one “I” giving life/existence to another “I” is the true father-son relationship:
Paternal Traducianism.
To deny Jesus is the son of God in this manner is to deny both the Father and the Son.
Jesus did not preexist as a person before his Father beget him in Mary’s womb.
Paternal Traducianism is what Jesus claims when he says “I proceeded forth and came out from the Father (the Father sent Me)”.
RAS,
So you agree with paternal traducianism in human propagation, but you want to apply it to the First and Second Persons of the Trinity? The propagation of temporal, finite beings cannot be the same as the existence of the eternal, infinite nature of God. Jesus the man did not preexist his conception, but the human nature of Jesus was assumed by the eternally existing Second Person of the Trinity. Like Adam, the human spirit of Jesus was created out of nothing–there was no human father from which to traduce. Neither Adam’s nor Jesus’ human spirit was traduced from God. Otherwise, Adam could not have sinned, since the spirit of God cannot sin. Adam’s spirit was not divine but human, finite, and fallible. Also, if Adam’s spirit was an emanation of God, then the prospect of a human spirit in Jesus is superfluous. Jesus was not speaking of traducianism when He said that He proceeded and came from the Father. He was speaking of both His divinity and authority.
Your comments suggest that you are disputing the Trinity, which is a topic entirely different from what is discussed in this article.