CHAPTER VII. THEOLOGIANS THEMSELVES CONCEDE THE AUGUSTINIAN DOGMAS

INDEFENSIBLE.

Although each theologian claims that the mode of meeting difficulties adopted by his school is satisfactory, yet as each maintains that all other modes are unavailing, it comes to pass that a _majority_ of theologians declare each attempt to make the Augustinian dogma consistent with the moral sense of humanity an utter failure.

It has been shown that the Catholic mode is not to attempt to defend the dogma. It is “decreed” by “the church,” which is the only infallible interpreter of God’s Word, to be in the Bible, and it is to be received, like the doctrine of transubstantiation, as an inscrutable mystery. This is the mode also adopted by Dr. Woods and many other Protestants.

The following from the Princeton theologians presents their protest against this Catholic method. They perceive that if they allow it in this case, they have no excuse for denying the validity of the Catholic defense of transubstantiation. And so they proceed to claim that imputing to children sins that they never committed, and thus involving them in endless misery, is the true mode, while the Catholic one is vain.

The Princeton Mode against the Catholic Mode.

The Princeton Reviewers, in opposing the Catholic mode, as defended by Dr. Woods, say:

“How is it to be reconciled with the divine character that the fate of unborn millions should depend on an act over which they had not the slightest control, and in which they had no agency? This difficulty presses the opponents of the doctrine (of imputation) more heavily than its advocates. God must produce such results either on the ground of _justice_ or of _sovereignty_. The defenders of imputation take the ground of _justice_—their opponents that of _sovereignty_.

“Is it more congenial with the unsophisticated moral feelings of men that God, out of his _mere sovereignty_, should determine that because one man sinned all men should sin, that because one man forfeited his favor all men should incur his curse, or because one man sinned all should be born with a contaminated moral nature, than that, in virtue of a _most benevolent constitution_ by which one was made _the representative_ of the race, the punishment of the one should come upon all?”

That is to say, they affirm interrogatively that imputing sins to innocent beings that they never committed, as the ground of penal inflictions, is a better defense of God from the charge of being the author of sin and of cruel injustice than the Catholic mode of _sovereignty and mystery_. At the same time they discard the _constitutional transmission_ mode of Andover and New Haven.

The following from President Edwards the younger, gives the argument of a _constitutional transmission_ divine against the imputation mode.

The Transmission Mode against the Imputation Mode.

“The common doctrine has been, that Adam’s posterity, unless saved by Christ, are damned on account of Adam’s sin, and that this is just, because his sin is imputed or transferred to them. By _imputation his sin becomes their sin_.

“When the justice of such a transfer is demanded, it is said that _the constitution which God has established_ makes the transfer just.

“To this it may be replied, that the same way it may be proved just to damn a man _without any sin at all_, either personal or imputed. We need only to resolve it into _a sovereign constitution_ of God.”

The Andover and New Haven theologians regard both the Catholic and the Princeton modes as utterly unsatisfactory, and offer instead the mode of _constitutional transmission_ as relieving the difficulties.

But Dr. Woods thus argues the case against them, and appeals powerfully to “intelligent and candid men:”

Dr. Woods in behalf of the Catholic Mode against the Constitutional Transmission Mode.

“And is there not just as much reason to urge this objection against the theory just named? Its advocates hold that God brings the whole human race into existence without holiness, and with such propensities and in such circumstances as will certainly lead them into sin; and that he brings them into this fearful condition in consequence of the sin of their first father, without any fault of their own. Now, as far as the divine justice or goodness is concerned, what great difference is there between our being depraved at first, and being in such circumstances as will certainly lead to depravity the moment moral action begins? Will not the latter as infallibly bring about our destruction as the former? And how is it more compatible with the justice or the goodness of God to put us into one of these conditions than into the other, when they are both equally fatal? It is said that our natural appetites and propensities and our outward circumstances do not lead us into sin by any absolute or physical necessity; but they do in all cases certainly lead us into sin, and God knows that they will when he appoints them for us. Now, how can our merciful Father voluntarily place us, while feeble, helpless infants, in such circumstances as he knows beforehand will be the certain occasion of our sin and ruin?... What difference does it make, either as to God’s character, or the result of his proceedings, whether he constitutes us sinners at first, or knowingly places us in such circumstances that we shall certainly become sinners, and that very soon? Must not God’s design as to our being sinners be the same in one case as in the other; and must not the final result be the same? Is not one of these states of mankind fraught with as many and as great evils as the other? What ground of preference then would any man have?...

“Let intelligent, candid men, who do not believe either of these schemes, say whether one of them is not open to as many objections as the other.”

The idea of a preëxistence of the race _before_ Adam, is not held by any denomination.

Thus it appears that whenever any person claims that each of these attempts to make the Augustine theory, as held by the great Christian sects, consistent with the moral sense of humanity is an utter failure, he is sustained by _a majority_ of the most learned and acute theologians of our age and nation.