Imputation in Various Contexts

Samuel Baird writes, "To impute, is, to attribute a moral act or attitude to a party" (The Elohim Revealed, pg. 471). In the historia salutis, three contexts in which some sort of important attribution or imputation is theorized include:

1. Sins are imputed to Christ when He suffered for the sake of His sheep.

2. Sin is imputed to us when we are born.

3. Righteousness is imputed to us when we are converted.

Let's look at these more closely:

1. Here is why I think this proposal is problematic: Christ never sinned, nor did He participate in sin... so how can He be truthfully attributed, regarded as, or charged with being a sinner? Now, I would agree that it is just for Christ to voluntarily experience the wrath of God (see note below) in anticipation of union with sinners such that His suffering satisfies the punishment due to them (penal substitution). However, it seems to me that the Father never falsely looks at Christ as something that Christ is not (a sinner). Thus, #1 is false.

Another problem: if sin's are said to be imputed to Christ at another time than His suffering, when would that be? Whilst He is reigning in heaven? That isn't intelligible. Or if sin is imputed to Christ at the time He suffered on the cross, whose sins are imputed? The elect's? If so, then why are the elect regarded as enemies of God and under God's wrath before they are converted? That would imply double punishment - the same sins are unjustly punished twice over. I write more on this point here (see the comment section as well).

[Side note: one doesn't need to suppose that the Trinity experienced ontological separation in order for Christ to endure the just wrath due to sinners. As an analogy, consider that we were "children of wrath" and "enemies of God" even while "in love He predestined us." A fortiori, Christ's experiencing the wrath of God - suffering in body and soul - does not suggest an internal rift within the Trinity. See, for example, Psalm 22:1-2 specifying the withdrawal of the experience of the presence of the Father at the time of the crucifixion.]

2. Adam's sin is imputed to us when we are born because we are born "in Adam." We are united to our prototypical father by having been naturally generated from or been begotten by him. In the case of Christ, He is of the same spirit - consubstantial - with Adam (and us) but is not from Adam's concrete spirit, having been born of a virgin. We, on the other hand, are not only of the same spirit but from his concrete spirit. Having been multiplied out of him, we can be justly regarded as having sinned in him. While we did not exist as persons, Adam's same, concrete spirit by which he sinned is now in us (paternal traducianism). 

To deny any of this seems to lead to irresolvable problems. Are we are punished for something for which we are not guilty? Are we guilty without having participated in that in virtue of which we are guilty? I plan to outline this participation in a separate post, but suffice it to say that I think #2 is true.

3. Whereas I have suggested that there is a sense in which "we" were "in Adam" when he sinned (and, thus, were participants in his sin), we were not "in" the last Adam at the time He lived perfectly or suffered on the cross (cf. John 7:39). Thus, we did not "participate" in Christ's work of redemption. That is, while the ground of our condemnation is our own wrong-doing, the ground of our justification is not on the basis of our right-doing.

On the other hand, justification is based on our union with Christ and, by extension, His work (cf. the Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 66). In fact, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 2:5-6, etc. show that those who are in Christ are attributed, imputed, or regarded as experiencing crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and seating with Christ. Christ's life forms the basis for and pattern of our salvation.

We bear an inverse relationship to the first Adam as we do to the last: pertaining to the spirit of the first Adam, by natural generation we are born out of him and his (and "our") sin. By contrast, pertaining to the Spirit of the last Adam, in regeneration we are born into Him and His righteousness (et al.). This inverse relationship explains why participation is necessary in the one case but not the other: the imputation of sin presupposes participation in said sin which, in turn, entails a real union with the first Adam. By grace, the imputation of righteousness does not require participation in the same sense, although said imputation does still require a real union with the last Adam. For more on this, see here. Thus, #3 is true.

Original Sin, Guilt, Traducianism, and Eastern Orthodoxy

The following is an expansion of a criticism of Eastern Orthodoxy I have only touched on elsewhere: original sin. It seems several Eastern Orthodox adherents prefer to call it "ancestral" sin. In some cases, there is a complete lack of understanding, such as can be seen in this video (the first video that shows up if you search for "original sin eastern orthodox" on Youtube), which is explained by a Ph.D. and priest:

...we have this development, this theological development which is based on this erroneous concept but we also have among the Reformers John Calvin who embraced a lot of the Augustinian concepts including predestination and he also embraced the understanding of Original Sin and the transmission of sin and guilt and the responsibility of Adam based on Augustine's understanding and that has been the case until this day for those who have followed the Calvinist understandings. Of course in the Orthodox Church this is not even a topic to be discussed because we do not see any such possibility of transmission of sin and guilt and responsibility in any possible way.

Perry Robinson similarly writes (link):

For the Orthodox, original sin pertains only to Adam’s transgression, and is not something that his descendants inherit from him. What we get from Adam is corruption and death, which lead us to sin, and separate us from God, in that we live in death.

This is not even remotely in the same league as intramural debates amongst Reformed theologians such as is found in George P. Hutchinson's fantastic work, The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterianism. Perhaps this would be less of a problem if the ignorance weren't so seemingly prevalent. 

Or take the following from the introduction to another priest's (Romanides') book, The Ancestral Sin:

Now we sin because we die, for the sting of death is sin. Sin reigns in death, in our corruptibility and mortality. Death is the root; sin is the thorn that springs from it.

This completely reverses cause and effect (Romans 6:23). I've also seen several Eastern Orthodox apologists appeal to John Chrysostom (Romanides and Eastern Orthodox apologists who disagree with Romanides - it seems there may be something of an intramural debate). Chrysostom says (link):

Seeing their children bearing punishment proves a more grievous form of chastisement for the fathers than being subject to it themselves.

Without fail, I find that Eastern Orthodox apologists deny original guilt. But then how is it that they think children may justly bear the punishment for another's sins? Whether Chrysostom himself believed this point is irrelevant. Hutchinson and the Reformed tradition deal with this question directly. Eastern Orthodox apologists seem barely aware of it. And those who are aware of it seem to ignore it! 

On this note, it's helpful to see engagement between theologians or apologists of different traditions. An example may be found in Original Sin and the Fall: Five Views. In it, Oliver Crisp responds to the Eastern Orthodox presentation (Andrew Louth, priest and Ph.D.) with the following on pg. 184:

In the context of expounding the doctrine of ancestral sin in terms of a web of human sinfulness going all the way back to our first parents, he raises the issue of whether this is sufficient as an account of sin. As he puts it, for defenders of original sin, like myself, the ancestral sin view “seems to leave open the possibility (even if totally exceptional) of someone living a blameless life.” And this, of course, is the fundamental worry Augustine had with Pelagius’s doctrine. The problem is, Louth never really addresses this objection to his position head on. He never explains how the Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin can avoid the traditional Augustinian objection that it leaves conceptual room for the existence of someone that is, for all practical purposes, without sin. This, it seems to me, is a serious lacuna in his presentation.

Note that Louth himself brings up the possibility of all people who are subject to original sin as living blameless lives and then proceeds to cite Mary as a case in which such a possibility actually happens. Even setting aside the problems with Marian devotion and the possibility that all men subject to original sin might refrain from choosing to sin, the immediate point is that Eastern Orthodox apologists think those who are subject to original sin are guiltless subjects of punishment. In the case of Christ - who voluntarily laid down His life - a case can be made that experience of punishment can just. The same cannot be said if our subjection to original sin is involuntary.

Rather than squarely facing this problem, Louth merely notes it and moves on as if it were a mere curiosity. From the same book, the following criticisms of Louth by another contributor are even better than Crisp's (pg. 172):

On a final note, the corruption-only position of ancestral sin is a flawed doctrine; it discounts the truths of imputation (and realism) implied in passages like Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:21-22 as well as the broader doctrinal synthesis of the whole Bible on which imputed guilt rests (see my marks to Crisp). I ask Louth, Are there any human beings apart from Christ who were perfectly sinless? Answering yes would suggest he has a defective hamartiology and Christology. Scripture is clear that with the exception of Christ all humans are sinners (e.g., Rom 3:9-20; 1 Jn 1:8); if we presume there were any sinless people, as perfectionists have claimed, such naiveté detracts from the glory of the incarnation and belittles the gravity of sin. I suspect Louth agrees. In that case, it must be our inherited corruption that makes sinning inevitable. But then how is this scenario just? Since no human is responsible for innate corruption, in his view, and since that same corruption leads inevitably to sin, it is unclear how ancestral sin fares any better than original guilt. The concerns surrounding divine justice remain.

Now, Hutchinson's book shows the Reformed view has its own, intramural debates regarding just how it is Adam's ancestors can be considered guilty. I've defended a realist view most extensively here (see also here and here where I engage with different Reformed theologians who disagree with it).

What might be helpful, however, is to draw comparisons to theologians whom Eastern Orthodox apologists respect. Even though their views don't align with mine in every facet, such might anticipate the more typical apologetic concerns that Eastern Orthodox apologists seem to have about the Reformed view as well as facilitate conversation. Discussing the view of Maximus the Confessor, for example, Marcelo Souza writes:

In Christ, the natural will is rooted in his concrete human nature, not an abstract human nature (as some modern philosophers of religion, who reject dyothelitism, haver argued).

This is a helpful point of departure in that it tracks with the sort of theological and anthropological metaphysics I (link) as well as other Protestants agree (as Souza himself notes; e.g. link): Christ has His own, concretely distinctive soul and body. He was, of course, consubstantial with us, but theologians like John of Damascus acknowledge a distinction between the concrete humanity of Christ and that of everyone else. He writes:

And we cannot, if we wish to be accurate, speak of Christ as having judgment (γνώμη) and preference. For judgment is a disposition with reference to the decision arrived at after investigation and deliberation concerning something unknown, that is to say, after counsel and decision. And after judgment comes preference, which chooses out and selects the one rather than the other. But the Lord being not mere man but also God, and knowing all things, had no need of inquiry, and investigation, and counsel, and decision, and by nature made whatever is good His own and whatever is bad foreign to Him.

John of Damascus is referring to what Eastern Orthodox theologians describe as the "gnomic will," a term particularly associated with Maximus the Confessor. Joseph P. Farrell describes it as a "mode of employment of the will" (link). Ian McFarland writes (In Adam's Fall, pg. 112):

Maximus draws a parallel between the natural and gnomic wills on the one hand, and the capacity to speak and the act of speaking on the other... Some monothelites rejected the ascription of a human will to Christ on the grounds that it would imply ignorance (see OTP 19 [PG91:216B – C]). The terms of Maximus’ dyothelitism imply not so much a flat - out rejection of this charge as its deflection by conceding that ignorance is a feature of gnomic will but denying that Christ willed gnomically. To put it another way, from Maximus’ perspective the monothelite charge rests on a failure to recognize that gnome refers to a tropos rather than the logos of the will. 

The idea is that while Christ is consubstantial with the rest of humanity - having the same nature and natural will as we do - the rest of mankind has a mode or tropos or manner or way of will[ing] that Christ did not. As McFarland says (In Adam's Fall, pg. 105):

...a given logos may be instantiated according to a range of possible tropoi. The full humanity of the will is thus unaffected by whether the tropos by which it operates is gnomic deliberation or the immediate presence of God characteristic of deification.

Let us now consider a Reformed engagement with Eastern Orthodox apologists. Given what has been said, McFarland points out (In Adam's Fall, pg. 107):

...while Maximus’ understanding of postlapsarian human willing neither envisages nor requires Augustine’s vision of a fallen humanity unable to avoid sin, it certainly allows for it. If the integrity of the will remains intact when we become unable to sin in glory (as both he and Augustine affirm), there seems nothing inherently problematic about affirming that genuine agency is preserved in circumstances where sinning is unavoidable. 

Satan is an example of an agent who unavoidably sins. So what prevents a Reformed Christian making use of a concept of mode of will[ing] such that in concrete cases (viz. everyone except Christ), "sinning is unavoidable"? 

[As an aside, I don't think McFarland is suggesting that unavoidability implies determinism: we might imagine one's freely (in the libertarian sense) choosing from amongst various, sinful alternatives. On the other hand, it is possible for sin to be predestined (e.g. 1 Kings 22:20-23, Acts 4:27-28).]

Or take an Eastern Orthodox apologist like Jay Dyer, who says: "Christ has not possessed a corrupted, defective will - we do... He's not subject to the corruption that comes through the procreation of man through seminal means." (link). 

A Reformed Christian might say the same. Indeed, traducians like Samuel Baird have argued along these lines. Romanides suggests that the early church "writers regarding the fall and salvation incline strongly toward the theory of traducianismus." The concrete soul of a child is paternally traduced, and this functions to explain why our mode of will[ing] is unlike Christ's (and, for that matter, unlike prelapasarian Adam).

Of course, a point of disanalogy would be that the Reformed position thinks our "corrupted, defective will" entails more than the Eastern Orthodox position, and this might return us to the subject of punishment, original guilt, participation in Adam's sin, and divine justice. But the immediate point is that on both Eastern Orthodox and Reformed positions, it is possible for Christ to be consubstantial with us yet not subject to [certain effects of] original sin.

I believe the foregoing anwers one further counterargument. Joseph P. Farrell writes:

...nature and its properties as created by God, are good. The natural will thus chooses nothing but the good. Opposition to the divine will is thus always in the evil mode of the employment of the will, and is thus always personal. And this in turn means that free choice is not ultimately concerned with a dialectic of opposition between the divine and human natures in Christ, or between evil and good choices in man himself.

Similarly, McFarland writes:

As promising as Maximus’ doctrine of the will may appear for shoring up Augustine’s understanding of original sin, however, further reflection suggests serious obstacles to any proposed marriage of the two theologies. As Augustine himself was very aware, the doctrine of original sin is credible only if the categories of nature (as God’s good creation) and will (as the source of creatures’ deviation from God) are kept distinct. But surely one of the consequences of Maximus’ integration of will and nature is to render this sort of distinction untenable: if sin is a function of the will (viz., its deviation from God’s will for the creature), and the operation of the will is simply an expression of human nature, then the doctrine of original sin (viz., the assertion that the will is congenitally opposed to God) seemingly implies that human nature as such has become evil. It follows either that God is not the creator of human nature (the Manichean position), or, worse, that God –precisely as the creator of human nature – is also the creator of sin.

In the case of Farrell, my first response would be to point out that the natural will qua natural will does not choose anything. Persons enhypostatize natures. A natural will outlines a capacity one has in virtue of his nature. For Farrell to say "The natural will thus chooses nothing but the good" conflates nature with person, because only persons choose.

Ignoring this slip, there is the question of the natural will itself, discussion of which performs the double-duty of responding to Farrell and McFarland simultaneously. What capacity or capacities does the natural will entail (in the context of anthropology)? The simplest answer seems to be that the natural will affords man the capacity to will, act, or choose. This capacity is distinct from the voluntary exercise of will, act, or choice. This capacity is also distinct from that to which one might be disposed to choose. Sin is not a substance, but neither are volitional natures morally neutral in terms of disposition.

[Parenthetically, one might easily expand this discussion on human nature to encompass our rationality. Both the rational and volitional seem to be rooted in one's concrete humanity, viz. one's spirit or soul. What I've said regarding a distinction between a natural will vs. its employment/disposition would analogously apply to a distinction between a so-called natural rationality vs. its employment/disposition. 

Thus, these are two capacities of one nature. In no sense did the Fall destruct our capacity to capacity to think, will, act, or choose. On other other hand, our mode of disposition and action - in obedience or rebellion to God - was mutable.] 

This finally turns us to the fact that God created Adam and Eve good. Of course, God created everyone good. Does this entail that the orientation of one's natural will can only towards the good, as Farrell seems to want to suggest? If so, then why isn't it possible for Satan (for example) to employ his will towards the good?

On the other hand, how does the Reformed position avoid McFarland's point regarding anthropological Manicheanism? If the orientation of a concrete human nature might be to rebel against God, how could this be? As has been mentioned, traducianism seems to solve the dilemma. McFarland seems to assume that this is not a live option - as if the concrete humanities (souls and bodies) of Adam's progeny are created ex nihilo. While John of Damascus is taken to be a creationist, consideration of the following is still useful (link):

...generation means that the begetter produces out of his essence offspring similar in essence. But creation and making mean that the creator and maker produces from that which is external, and not out of his own essence, a creation of an absolutely dissimilar nature....Wherefore all the qualities the Father has are the Son's, save that the Father is unbegotten, and this exception involves no difference in essence nor dignity, but only a different mode of coming into existence. We have an analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God Himself moulded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son), and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam's rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from each other in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of coming into existence.

After contrasting begetting and creating, he says Adam begot Seth. This implies Adam produced out of his essence an offspring similar in essence. If we highlight that it was out of Adam's concrete humanity that Seth was begotten, we are closer to a biblical and reasonably motivated model on which: 

1. Christ was consubstantial with the rest of humanity yet, unlike them, not subject to [the effects of] original sin.

2. Adam's ancestors are justly punished for having guiltily participated in the original transgression.

3. The Fall did not destruct the image of God in man yet did put us in a terrible mode of need for conformity to Christ's image.

Trinitarian and Anthropological Metaphysics

In the comments of a recent post, I was recently asked some challenging questions regarding Trinitarianism, Christology, and anthopology. In the past few years, I've mentioned several times the need for humility and balance when positing a doctrine of God (see here and pursuant links). On the one hand, I aim to do a better job of avoiding dogmatism on points of speculation. On the other hand, even in the case that answers to certain questions are underdetermined by biblical data, apologetic concerns warrant consideration of possibilities to prevent one's faith from being undercut. 

In what follows, my goal is to provide answers that are faithful to Scripture insofar as they are deducible from or coherent with it. Keeping in mind that this latter qualification - coherence - is a necessary but insufficient condition for truth, the questions I was asked will be indented:

I'm trying to also keep in my the Trinity, with the three persons united in one being. Being would be identical to nature (divine nature), would it not?

On the concept of "unity," this post would provide a helpful background for my own thoughts (excepting a few uncareful remarks in the final paragraph).

I don't think the Trinity are united "in one being" if that means persons are subsumed under nature. Don't get me wrong: natures don't exist without persons, and persons do not exist without natures. Yet insofar as "nature" or "being" discusses what is common to individuals, natures belong to and are predicated of persons, not persons to natures. "Enhypostasis" - nature is in the hypostasis. If persons were "in" natures, then Christ's having two natures would seem to imply Nestorianism.

Now, the members of the Trinity are consubstantial. In fact, I think the meaning of their being consubstantial is just the same as the meaning of you and I being consubstantial, although the manner of consubstantiality differs between Trinitarian members (eternal, necessary) and us as men (temporal, contingent). Regardless, they indeed are of the same nature. 

But I would balk at certain theories of divine simplicity that may be implicit in the phrasing of your question. That is, Trinitarian consubstantiality does not imply only one concrete nature. Recall that you mentioned mind is "indexed" to nature: if we subsumed the divine persons under or in a single, concrete divine nature, then, that would entail that there is just one divine mind. The problem with that - as you seem to recognize - is that it runs against biblical data suggesting the members have distinct, self-reflective thoughts (e.g. John 17). On that note:

So the mind of the Son would have self-referential propositions that the Father would not (e.g. "I am the eternally begotten one"), but that mind would not be coextensive with the person of the Son? What would be the remainder? Would it be something like the shared divine nature that extends beyond the self-referential thoughts of the mind?

While the mode of the Son's existence is eternal, He is also eternally begotten. Here is precisely where I think Clark, for example, went wrong: it is not merely that the Son thinks something of Himself that is different than His thought of the Father or Spirit; rather, this thought corresponds to something about the Son Himself. I argue Clark's rejection of the correspondence theory of truth in the 1940s led him to collapse persons into propositions/thoughts (link). I further argue I think Clark's reasons for rejecting it only pertain to a certain kind of correspondence theory of truth (link). 

What I am saying, then, is that the persons of the Trinity are not simply minds - and again, since you agree minds are "indexed" to nature, that would not constitute a differentiating principle between the individual Trinitarian persons anyway. Nor are the persons the thoughts of the mind (as if it is intelligible to suggest the divine persons are products of three minds?). On the contrary, the thoughts of the persons of the Trinity about themselves reflect or correspond to something unique about the way that they themselves are: unbegotton/originate, eternally begotten/generation, eternally spirated/process. Epistemological and ontological categories should not be collapsed. 

Also remember that in the original post on Clark and Nestorius, I was only attempting to provide a connotative definition of "person" in general. I was not talking individual persons/hypostases/subjects. For example, I think the Father, Son, Spirit, the angels, and humans are all "persons" because they have something in common: they each have a mind or minds. But this definition does not individuate any one individual "person" from any other. Well, that makes sense, for we agree that the having of a mind (or minds) is something properly belonging to the category of nature - not that we have the same nature as God, of course, but the overlap explains (at least partially) in what sense creaturely persons might be images of divine persons. 

So what individuates individual persons/hypostases/subjects? We might posit (as Clark did) that they can be individuated by their thoughts (of themselves). In a cursory analysis, this might be sufficient. But foundationally, note again that thoughts are products of thinkers. To the extent that an individual's thoughts of himself is relevant to this question, that to which the thoughts correspond - the individual himself - is all the more so. 

Let me suggest that an individual person is the correspondent of whatever may truly be predicated of him either timelessly (if His mode of existence is timeless, e.g. the Father) or at time t (if his given his mode of existence is temporal, e.g. an angel or human). What I "think" of myself is irrelevant, because my thoughts of myself are potentially false. Rather, true propositions about me (corresponding to my existence at time t) are those thoughts God thinks about me (corresponding to my existence at time t).

The above is perfectly intelligible to me. Even the case of Christ incarnate can be nuanced (example). Here is one catch, however: it suggests that the divine nature is concretized in the three persons. This should be obvious anyways if we accept a model of the Trinity on which each member of the Trinity has a distinct mind, but it should be noted. Not all (or even most) Trinitarian models would accept this. If we take Clark's definitions of thoughts/beliefs as involving volition, three concrete minds also entails three concrete wills.

Clark's own reasoning supports this, for he reject faculty psychology in the context of anthropology and Trinitarianism:

In the case of God, the simplicity of his reality should favor still more such a identification, rather than a development of divine faculty psychology. (April 3, 1937, Letter to J. Oliver Buswell)

A man is not a compound of three things, an intellect, a will, and an emotion. Each man is a single personality. (1943. On the Primacy of the Intellect. Westminster Theological Journal Vol. 5 No. 2, May. 182-195)

The question has to do with Ephesian 4 where it speaks of man’s mind being darkened. Well, I would include in the functions of mind the assent as well as the notitia, but I distinguish between the two functions. This is not faculty psychology, but it is two functions of the same spirit. (1977. A Defense of Christian Presuppositions in the Light of Non-Christian Presuppositions)

Just as in the post on "unity" I linked to above, these statements exhibit an internal inconsistency in Clark's thought. If the same spirit has two functions - assent and notitia or knowledge - then on what grounds could Clark affirm three distinct functions in one respect (self-knowledge) but not the other (assent)? If only the Son thinks "I am the Son," what does it mean to "think" if assent is not involved?

We can certainly differentiate the relationship between our persons to propositions we "know" (acquisitional, receptive) to the relationship between the Trinitarian persons and propositions they "know" (active, generative). In both cases, the objects of knowledge - truth-bearing propositions - are the same, although the psychological activity of "knowing" differs.

To reiterate, on the model I gravitate towards, the Trinitarian persons are consubstantial just as you and I are consubstantial. What it means for the divine nature to be "in" each person is the same, is true, and therefore corresponds to the existence of each person. There is just one "divine nature" that we conceptualize: all-wise, all-powerful, all-good, etc. Each member of the Trinity is all-wise, all-good, etc.

It's just that how consubstantiality cashes out is not in persons being found "in[side]" of a common nature but rather along the lines that a person who is a principle or "fount" (e.g. the Father; Adam) communicates his same nature to others who find their "origin" in him (e.g. the Son/Spirit; the rest of humanity). This bears on the unity of persons and explains the connection to traducianism, by the way, which I'll return to momentarily.

In the context of the Trinity, there is a necessary connection between the members. The property of the Father, the attributes of the divine nature He enhypostatizes, and mode of the communication of His divine nature to His Son and Spirit is such that the three persons 1) mutually depend on each other - for example, the Father is not who He is without His Son and Spirit - and 2) always act conjointly and agreeably. 

A comparison could reasonably be made between 1) three distinct knowers who distinctly and reflexively index the same, objective body of propositional meaning, and 2) three distinct operators or actors who necessarily produce one and the same conjoint operation or act (which, incidentally, includes the body of propositional meaning comprised of necessary and contingent truths).

A traducian friend of mine (Ken Hamrick) uses the language of "shared agency" to describe our participation in Adam's sin while the mode of "our" being was not yet (i.e. at the time of the Fall) as individuals but as the singular nature of Adam through which he sinned and out of whom we were not yet propagated as individuals (link). I agree with him, although how we think this analogizes to the Trinity differs. 

Ken would emphasize the numerical sameness of the spirit traduced to us and thereby argue for the numerical sameness of essence shared among the Trinity (link). I would emphasize that once we are propagated out of Adam, our possession of the same spirit is nevertheless concretely distinct and thereby argue that the Trinitarian persons exhibit an analogy to "shared agency" in the eternal communication of the divine nature through which the persons operate even as they are eternally individuated and individuals. As I mentioned at the outset, these are rather deep waters to stake out a dogmatic claim that one can confidently swim them. 

In either model - Ken's or mine - there is an analogy one could make between Trinitarianism and traducianism. There are also disanalogies in either case, of course. For Ken, whereas we have distinct, concrete natures (albeit inherited through our fathers once we are propogated out of them into a different mode of being, i.e. as individuals), the members of the Trinity would not. On my end, the manner of consubstantiality between the Father, Son, and Spirit would be eternal and grounded in their intrapersonal relations rather than temporal (such as my relation to my father). This interesting impasse at once suggests an argumentative parallel between Trinitarianism and traducianism regardless of which one of us is correct as well as that other reasons must be given for independent support for either of our positions.

I think my model goes some way in explaining biblical texts like John 17, the covenant of redemption, and the resonance between theology proper and anthropology. 

Further, on the subject of anthropology in general and traducianism in particular, I think this model (and Ken's) also avoids nominalism while affirming a realism in the contexts of original sin and justification which does not devolve into erroneous positions. For example, erroneous positions such as: 

1) one wherein Christ assumes a sinful nature (cf. uncareful statements of the doctrine of original sin), 

2) one wherein I am unjustly punished for sins which are really and completely alien to me (cf. representationalist theories of original sin), 

3) one wherein Christ assumes and glorifies a human nature under which all persons are said to be subsumed (cf. Eastern Orthodoxy and deification, despite the protestations of its apologists to believe that natures are in hypostases rather than the reverse), 

4) one wherein infused righteousness is argued as necessary for justification to be justly possible in this lifetime (cf. Roman Catholic apologists, although those who argue this are themselves inconsistent).

On several of these points, see here for more. Further potential advantages of this model are that it seems to cohere with other metaphysical ideas which have separate appeal: theistic propositional realism (i.e. divine conceptualism), a version of divine simplicity which allows for formal distinctions, an Aristotelian theory of universals, etc.

I've thought about this quite a lot, and while the above is not a full story, it's probably the best articulation I can come up with at the present. To your next question:

If by inheriting one's father's "spirit" means those immaterial attributes that he possesses (analogous to the material attributes one possesses), then I think I can get my mind around what "spirit" means. Just as our bodies are made from our parents's bodies without being identical to them, so our spirits are made from our parents's spirits without being identical to them.

But then what distinguishes mind and spirit, or are they the same?

I think they are the same. Christ assumed a body and a rational soul or spirit without assuming a person, so there is no Christological difficulty, at least. Ken has elsewhere suggested that the "spirit is the seat of the will regarding moral matters" (link), and I think this all dovetails with Clark's aforementioned thought that knowledge and assent are two functions of the same spirit.

Finally, I had written:

The separation of body and spirit is "death," and such is predicated of our persons; but so too is the separation of our spirit from the Spirit "death" also predicated of our persons... suggesting the relationship between man's body and his spirit is analogically related to the dependency of our spirit to God's Spirit?

Maybe all of this becomes simplified by looking at a case most Christians would agree with: Christians will be conscious in the intermediate state. Are these Christians still human? If so, then it appears that they just are, ontologically speaking, spirits. To say that the person experiences death is to say that his body has been separated from his spirit (i.e. himself). Men are not, ontologically speaking, composite beings, for although these spirits do normally have bodies, the separation of the normal unity between spirit and body does not ontologically change a person (spirit). Likewise, the separation of the designed unity between spirit and Spirit does not ontologically change a person (spirit). If physical death is not an ontological change, neither would be spiritual death.

Your question: 

As for the subsequent post wherein you discuss the intermediate state, have you considered also that our spiritual bodies may be of a different order than our physical bodies? Paul's statements about the natural body and spiritual body are puzzling. "Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." The first man was made of the earth from dust, the last man is from heaven. Is it not safe to say that even in our present state we not "fully human" but are "incomplete" because the body we were given (even Adam's sinless body) was only the seed of what will only be completed in the resurrection? So, it may be the case that there is no ontological change since the separation of the spirit from the body in death is part of the planned transformation from natural body to spiritual body (like the seed germinating).

Did you mean to ask whether it's possible that "even in our present state we [are] not "fully human" but are "incomplete""? If so, did the incarnate and yet-be-glorified Son assume a fully human nature? Further, when this Son died and was buried (prior to His resurrection), was He fully human or not? Surely the former. 

I would also keep in mind the question of whether or not the reprobate are fully human: they will experience a bodily resurrection too, but their spirit remains severed from the life-giving Spirit of God and, thus, experience a second death. These points cumulatively suggest that death entails no change in nature.

Now, my original comment was about whether is ontological change at the time of death. Here, on the other hand, I am here emphasizing that there is never a change to the human essence each of us has. Ontology is indeed a broader category than humanity, I just wanted to answer your specific questions by distinguishing between an eschatological telos and a change in nature.

The Justice of God and the Imputation of Adam's Sin: A Realist Apologetic

Last year, I wrote a post in which I said I would like to write more on the topic of original sin (link). In that post, I provided an introduction to some resources for Reformed readers who want to gain a sound perspective on what theologians have historically argued that original sin entails. I also briefly alluded to why I think that traducianism and a realistic view (a la Samuel Baird) of our participation in Adam's sin is biblical and vindicates the justice of God in imputing Adam's sin to us, his progeny.

As mentioned in the aforementioned link, what original sin entails has been debated by Presbyterians, a most notable account of which is contained in George P. Hutchinson's excellent book, The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterian Theology. This debate continues even today.

For example, at the invite of a friend, I had the opportunity to discuss and defend the realist position outlined in Hutchinson's book in a recent conversation with Dr. Lane Tipton and others on the Reformed Forum discord. 

With the exception of my friend, Ken Hamrick, and I, most (if not all) of the other interlocutors explicitly rejected or leaned against the view that Adam's federal headship is grounded in his natural headship. That is, they reject a realist view of original sin. 

Those who are interested in what the realist view is but don't have as much time or whose interest has yet to be piqued enough to read the resources in the above link might find the following conversation enlightening. I believe the comments by Ken and I show the strength of the realist position in its ability to answer tough questions that other positions seemingly can't. I'll indent the comments of others and leave my own comments without indent. All italics and bold emphases are each authors' own. At the end, I'll venture a few further thoughts that were not included in the conversation:

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tyler 

The organic unity that exists between Adam and his posterity is not the ground but the means for the transmission of Adam’s sin to us. Now it can certainly be said that Adam must have one nature with us if he were to be our covenant head and his sin were to be imputed to us. An angel, for example, could not represent us federally. But, conversely, it does not follow that Adam, because he possesses our nature, now must represent us. The unity of the nature is only a conditio sine qua non. It is in no way the ground that excludes the possibility of the opposite. The actual relationship is such that God, with an eye to the covenant unity for which He intended humanity, also created it as a natural unity. As being reckoned in Christ by election entails that in God’s time one is born again of Christ through the Spirit, so being reckoned in Adam by the covenant of works entails that in God’s time one is born of Adam.

-Vos, R.D. II, pg. 32

 

Ken Hamrick

@Tyler Thanks! I now have this book, so I'll have to study it...

 

Ken Hamrick

@Tyler I would say that not only could an angel not represent us federally, but also, no angel could represent other angels federally. Having a nature with the same characteristics misses the point of representation. Only when the nature of the representative head contains within it all those who are to be represented can the defining act of the head be justly seen as having been participated in by the members. There must be a genealogical principle involved in which the organic unity transcends the merely physical. As to the supposed necessity of representation resulting from such an organic unity, we need to look at the special act of Providence in God condescending to make a covenant with Adam. By nature, Adam owed perfect obedience; but that would never of its own attain to the eternal reward that God graciously offered in His covenant. Adam’s disobedience was simultaneously natural and Covenantal, since obedience by both was owed. So then, the organic unity would of necessity result in his representation of us according to that natural obedience that was owed and the natural results of disobedience; but it would not result of its own in a necessary representation for Covenantal rewards. The rewards offered to Adam by covenant exceeded what was naturally due for obedience; but the penalties incurred were exactly what was naturally due for his sin. It is true that we are naturally born in God’s time; but naturally, we cannot be born other than to be born of Adam, since that is the origin of our nature. We were not “reckoned in Christ by election.” We were “chosen in Him” by election. It is a matter of the decree and not a matter of union in Him according to His righteousness. In God’s time, one is born again in Christ according to God’s plan and decree. Only when He is put in us are we put in Him and given a proprietary title to His human actions and counted as crucified and risen with Him. 

 

Tyler 

Decree 

(WLC 14) "God executes his decrees in the works of creation and providence, according to his infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of his own will." 

Creation 

(WLC 17) "After God had made all other creatures, he created man male and female; formed the body of the man of the dust of the ground, and the woman of the rib of the man, endued them with living, reasonable, and immortal souls; made them after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it, and dominion over the creatures; yet subject to fall." 

Providence 

(WLC 20) "The providence of God toward man in the estate in which he was created, was the placing him in paradise, appointing him to dress it, giving him liberty to eat of the fruit of the earth; putting the creatures under his dominion, and ordaining marriage for his help; affording him communion with himself; instituting the Sabbath; entering into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience, of which the tree of life was a pledge; and forbidding to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon the pain of death." 

Creation (image) = means of imputation 

Providence (covenant) = grounds of imputation

 

Tyler 

At least how I understand it...Vos does note prior to the quote provided earlier that the distinction between natural relationship and the covenant of works is logically and judicially distinguished but not temporally distinguished. 

Such that "even when the covenant of works has served its purpose, the natural relationship remains in force in all circumstances, and also all the demands that stem from it still apply to man." Of course this is a must - https://reformedforum.org/courses/union-with-christ-the-benefits-of-his-suffering-and-glory/ (youtube links coming soon??)

Reformed Forum

Lane Tipton

Union with Christ: The Benefits of His Suffering and Glory

This course aims to build up the saints in their understanding of two basic features of Reformed theology: 1) redemption accomplished by Christ for the church in his humiliation and exaltation, suffering and glory; and 2) how that redemption accomplished by Christ is applied by Christ’s Spirit, work.

 

Ken Hamrick 

To what do we mean by the ground of imputation but the ground of justice for imputing? And what is just about God imputing sin to those who did not yet exist, due only to His choice to view all future men in a "moral union" with Adam? Covenant alone cannot be the ground of justice, because even covenants must morally conform to the greater framework of God's moral law. If a covenant stipulated that its members must blaspheme God daily, then it would be immoral to keep that covenant. Covenants are only moral insofar as they comply with God's moral law, and that law does not abdicate its authority in the presence of a covenant, as if anything specified by covenant is justly grounded in that covenant, regardless of whether it would be just in the greater moral framework of God's law. Specifically, if it is unjust in the greater moral framework of God's law to hold as guilty those who had no part in the crime other than to be--years or millennia in the future--physically propagated from the criminal, then it cannot be claimed to be just based only on the fact that a covenant was made which specified that they would share the legal standing of the progenitor who happened to be the covenant representative. If it is immoral outside of the covenant, then it is immoral regardless of any covenant.

 

Ken Hamrick 

@Tyler God, in wanting a covenantal union of men in Adam, created mankind in such a way that all men are propagated out of the substance of Adam--both the material and immaterial natures--such that all men had a germinal, spiritual existence in Adam and a participation in his sin. In this way, the justice of imputation is grounded in the creation, while the grace of covenantal reward would have been strictly a matter of special providence. However, even if God had not condescended to covenant with Adam, if Adam had remained righteous then his righteous state would have been passed on to his progeny in the same way that his sin was passed on. Often it's said that one cannot object to the imputed sin of Adam unless one also objects to the imputed righteousness of Christ. But notice that God was not content to reckon us with Christ's righteousness and leave it at that: rather, God also spiritually joins us to Christ by putting His Spirit within us in a union so intimate as to call us one new man in Him, so that we are crucified with Him and seated in heavenly places in Him. God's ways in this are very realistic, but we tend to ignore the realism and emphasize that God imputes based only on His will. And in the Trinity, we also ignore the realism and focus instead on the representation. But without realism, there could be no understanding of the Trinity. Three Persons in one substance is realism. Three Persons reckoned and treated as one substance would be nominalism. Although Vos appeals to the representation involved in the Trinity as archetypical of the representation involved in covenantal representation, it can only serve as archetype for realistic union.

 

Ken Hamrick 

The covenant union worked with the natural union as created. It could have stood without the natural union in the event that Adam passed the test, but it could not justly stand without it in the event that Adam failed. Gratuitous benefits, such as imputed righteousness or eternal life, are grace; but gratuitous condemnation can be nothing other than injustice. We do not earn God's salvation, but we did earn our condemnation as a race while, as Augustine said, "We all were that one man." Not only did we earn the condemnation, we also earned the depravity and spiritual death with which we are conceived.

 

Ken Hamrick 

Adam wasn't merely the representative of mankind, he was the root of mankind. And his sin was not conveyed merely by imputation, but his sin was conveyed by natural propagation. Adam wasn't merely a representative. He was a public person--a person who contained the whole public within him. What I'm advocating isn't something foreign to Reformed thinking. It's the root of Reformed thinking.

vantil101 

What is so helpful here by from Vos and from the WSC 12 is the distinction between nature and covenant. The covenant--and with it Adam's federal representation--accrues by virtue of an act of special providence. The covenantal probation and reward come by way of special revelation in the covenant of works. So also does representation. The terms of the covenant enshrine the ex pacto justice of God, so that the relation is not nominal or arbitrary. The natural relation is necessary for the representation; the covenantal relation is sufficient for representation. Thus, the "organic" or natural relation between Adam and his descendants is not the ground but the means to federal representation. Everything within the confessionally Reformed view hinges on that distinction and its outworking. To deny this is to fold the entirety of covenantal representation into creation and then either to deny the act of special providence altogether or to make it redundant in accounting for Adam's federal headship.

 

Me:

Vos: “Now it can certainly be said that Adam must have one nature with us if he were to be our covenant head and his sin were to be imputed to us. An angel, for example, could not represent us federally.”

Does Vos explain why would it be unjust for God to impute the sin of an angel to men?

vantil101 

Yes. Earlier on in the same section he engages in extensive discussion of that precise fact. The natural image of God (Gen. 1:27; 2:7) is the necessary condition for representation. Angels lack just that psycho-somatic image endowment.

 

Me:

Do you have a reference? I only have the kindle version.

vantil101 

My best advice for you is to read about 20 pages on either side of your own quotation. It will give you the context.

 

Me:

I don't see where Vos says anything about the image of God being the necessary condition for representation.

vantil101 

Image = natural relationship in the quotations above. 

 

Ken Hamrick 

I’ve read all of it. It seems circular. Man was made in God’s image. It is man’s nature to be in God’s image. Representation requires the natural relationship insofar as we are related to each other by our common nature in which we all are in the image of God.

 

Me:

Does Vos argue that angels have no natural relationship to God, though? The following statements suggest that they do have a natural relationship to God: 

Pg 290: 

"a) Adam by nature was obliged to obey God, without thereby having any right to a reward. 

b) God had created him mutable, and he also possessed no right to an immutable state. 

c) His natural relationship to God already included that he, if sinning, must be punished by God. 

d) All this was a natural relationship in which Adam stood." 

Pg. 592: …one must distinguish three kinds of relationships in which man stands to the law: 

"1. The natural relationship of a rational being. No due possession can be earned from God by this relationship. Even if a person in this relationship does all that is demanded from him, he is still an unprofitable servant [Luke 17:10]." 

Pg 1053: 

"[Good works] are also required by the natural relationship in which he, as a moral creature, stands toward God’s law."

Angels are rational beings, moral creatures, by nature obliged to obey God, punishable by sin, mutable, required to do good, etc. Do they not, then, stand in a natural relationship to Him?

Ken Hamrick 

“The terms of the covenant enshrine the ex pacto justice of God, so that the relation is not nominal or arbitrary.” If the union between Adam and mankind existed only in God’s mind, and not substantively within Adam himself, then the relation is nominal—regardless of assertions to the contrary. Is God’s justice according to truth? Truth is necessarily in accordance with reality. That which exists in God’s mind alone does not exist in reality. And if all men are reckoned by God as if all sinned when Adam sinned, but yet it is admitted that the souls of these men did not in any way exist in Adam or participate in his sin, then the so-called ex pacto justice is indeed an arbitrary act of sovereignty and not an act of justice—unless it is a justice “in name only” (nominal).

 

Ken Hamrick 

They don’t stand in a natural relationship to us, though.

 

Me:

Right. To be clear, I, like Vos, believe that: 

"…it can certainly be said that Adam must have one nature with us if he were to be our covenant head and his sin were to be imputed to us. An angel, for example, could not represent us federally." 

The reason I believe this, however, is because I think God’s only justly charges persons of sin if they participate in sin. Did we participate in angelic sin? No. In fact, we could not have participated in angelic sin for the reason you just mentioned and Vos (in the quote above) mentions. Therefore, it would be unjust to impute angelic sin to man. On the other hand, it was just of God to impute Adam’s sin to his posterity. Why? Because we can and did participate said sin. 

Our participation was not grounded in an arbitrary or nominal representative, as you say. In such a case, the question would be begged as to “why would it be unjust for God to impute the sin of an angel to men?” In fact, I think the foregoing conversation did beg this question… which is why I asked it! 

As it stands, then, the following answer to my question appears insufficient: “The natural image of God (Gen. 1:27; 2:7) is the necessary condition for representation.”

 

Ken Hamrick 

@vantil101 “The covenantal probation and reward come by way of special revelation in the covenant of works. So also does representation… The natural relation is necessary for the representation; the covenantal relation is sufficient for representation. Thus, the ‘organic’ or natural relation between Adam and his descendants is not the ground but the means to federal representation… To deny this is to fold the entirety of covenantal representation into creation and then either to deny the act of special providence altogether or to make it redundant in accounting for Adam's federal headship.” Is it true that the special act of providence added the Covenantal reward for obedience but added nothing to the penalty for disobedience? Ah! You will likely contend that the covenant alone caused the progeny to be included in the penalty. So the real bone of contention on this point is that traducianism & realism would make special providence “redundant in accounting for Adam’s federal headship.” But can’t you see how they work together? You know, when Covenant Theology first gained acceptance among Reformed, it was seen as complementary to the popular view of an Augustinian-Realistic participation of all men in Adam’s sin. They were seen as two sides of the same coin. When pressed about the justice of imputing only Adam’s first sin, they pleaded federal headship; and when pressed about the justification imputing Adam’s sin to those who supposedly had no part in it, they pleaded a realistic participation. And I think you will find if you look into it that even those who produced the WCF held that the imputed sin of Adam was to us a sin of participation rather than an alien sin.

 

vantil101 

The covenant of works includes dual sanctions of blessing and curse. Those sanctions are conveyed not by nature or natural revelation but by covenant or by special revelation. The sanctions are not concreated and natural to Adam by virtue of creation but specially revealed to him by virtue of an act of special providence. That is the interior logic of what WSC 12 and Vos are after. The natural relation established by special creation and the covenantal relation established by special providence--distinct yet simultaneous--are not two sides of the same coin but distinct aspects of God's creational relation to Adam in covenant. The natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for the terms of probation, the advancement of Adam's estate, the sanctions of blessing or curse, or the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption. The revelation of God's ex pacto justice in covenant that brings blessing or curse to Adam and his posterity is not a bare "different side" of the same natural coin. The federalism of WSC 12/WCF 7.1 and Vos is simply not the realism for which you advocate. 

 

Me:

I'm not sure if this response was meant to address what I wrote, what Ken wrote, or what both of us wrote. For my own clarification, may I ask if it would be unjust to impute sin to a non-participant in sin? 

“The natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for… the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption.” 

Why not? 

For example, if we can agree on that it would only be unjust to impute sin to a non-participant in sin, the only question would be: “how did we participate in Adam’s sin?” If traducianism is true, we bear a natural relationship to Adam not only biologically but also spiritually. In that case, I am struggling to see why “The natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for… the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption.”

 

Keith Hernandez 

I think the answer is, in short, because Adam is a federal/covenantal head, not an ontological head. He is the fount of humanity proceeding from him by ordinary generation. But as legal representative, his public position is federal and covenantal. As such imputation is the only proper mechanism for relating his guilt to others.

 

Me:

"Adam is a federal/covenantal head, not an ontological head." 

George P. Hutchinson discusses the question of natural and federal headship in his book, "The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterian Theology." There certainly appears to be room for debate about your assertion, especially if traducianism is true. That is, the above quote appears to 1) beg the question and 2) be a false dichotomy. 

"As such imputation is the only proper mechanism for relating his guilt to others." 

I don't think anyone is denying this, so I'm not sure what it has to do with the issue. The question is not whether sin is imputed but on what grounds it is imputed. On that note, may I ask you too if it would it be unjust to impute sin to a non-participant in sin?

 

paulhuang

If I may venture a question…if the imputation of Adam’s sin to us is based upon natural propagation, then how is it that we who are not related to Christ by natural propagation can be imputed with His righteousness?

 

Me:

Ken can answer for himself, of course, but if I may venture a relevant quote: 

"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… 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… 

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. 

Samuel Baird (https://archive.org/details/rejoindertoprinc00bair/page/32/mode/2up?view=theater)

  

vantil101 

The responses Jim and I gave above keep us from the sorts of remedial departures from the federalism in the WCF and in Vos as found in Baird.

 

Brad Anderson

In our young men's group we have had many discussions about the fairness of Adam's sin being imputed to all people. But we have found consolation in the reverse flow dynamic of the imputation. The same dynamic whereupon the sins of one man transferred to all men, allows for the sins of all men to transfer to the one man Jesus. Maybe we have this wrong? But that's how I understand Romans 5. I enjoy reading these discussions and the beautiful precision that you brothers are laboring toward.

 

Me:

I believe Baird would take exception to this! Baird certainly argues that his realist position is represented by the WCF and the divines (e.g. pgs. 39-46; 463ff.; etc. in The Elohim Revealed). https://books.google.com/books?id=945HAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

vantil101 

Thanks, brother. Vos is as incisive as a dogmatic theologian as he is a biblical theologian. I think he is the best since Calvin. Blessings!

 

Me:

Thank you for the kind words! 

I think the symmetry between the two Adams and the grounds of our imputations, as presented by Baird (natural birth vs. spiritual rebirth), is not only beautiful but also accounts for how it is fair that we are charged guilty for Adam's sin. For given traducianism, we really participated in the sin, albeit in a different mode of being. 

I would also like to echo Vos as an excellent theologian, even if I differ with him on this point. I own his Biblical Theology, Pauline Eschatology, Eschatology of the Psalter, and Reformed Dogmatics and have profited tremendously from them. 

 

Keith Hernandez 

There were many in the Presbyterian church, more of the New School types, who denied the classically reformed position. The men at old Princeton, however, really did a good job defending the position.

Me:

I definitely appreciated George Hutchinson's breakdown of the various schools in his book. I too disagree with the New School. His book was quite helpful to my understanding Baird, Hodge, Murray, etc. 

The issue I have with Charles Hodge (Princeton) is his insistence that "imputation does not imply a participation of the criminality of the sin imputed." Even John Murray seems to demur from Hodge on this point (The Imputation of Adam's Sin pg. 88). Robert Landis in particular took Hodge to task on this aberration from the view of the Westminster divines in his book, The Doctrine of Original Sin (https://books.google.com/books?id=SX4rAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false).

Keith Hernandez 

And the position of the Westminster Standards is - far as I can tell - clearly that of the Federalist kind. I dont even think that is under serious dispute. "They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed; and the same death in sin, and corrupted nature, conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation." WLC: "Q. 22. Did all mankind fall in that first transgression? The covenant being made with Adam as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, all mankind descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him in that first transgression."

 

Me:

Absolutely. To be clear, Baird agrees with this. He just grounds federal headship in natural headship. See pages 309ff. in The Elohim Revealed: 

"Here, it is necessary to guard against overlooking the inseparable and essential relation which Adam’s natural headship sustains to his federal office; and at the same time to avoid confounding them together, in disregard of the important distinction which subsists between them… 

It is perfectly conceivable that Adam might have been so made as to be the natural head of the race, without being either its moral or federal head… 

But although it was thus possible for Adam to have been made merely the natural, or the natural and moral, head of the race, without being its federal head, - the reverse was impossible. In order that he should be their federal head, it was necessary that they should derive from him both their being and the moral attitude of their nature." 

Actually, Baird cites the language you quote as evidence for his position: "They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed..."

 

Me:

vantil101 

Jim, Strimple, Vos, and I addressed that kind of argument above. I am finished with the discussion. Just disagree fundamentally with Baird’s realism. And the arguments have been made. All the best.

 

Me:

Okay. Thank you for the conversation. If anyone else is interested in continuing to talk, I'm happy to do so. But I'll not try to monopolize the board.

 

Brad Anderson 

“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.” 

I have been reading the context around Baird's statement above and he strikes me as emphasizing a mystical union with Christ over and against a legal standing in Christ. That's very concerning.

 

Me:

I believe he means to emphasize both. Take the following statements he makes: 

“...the righteousness in which we are justified is extrinsic and foreign to our nature. We were so far from being natively in its author, when he wrought it, that our native positive toward him is that of alienation and antagonism. And it is only by factitious means, - by renewing influences, superimposed upon our nature, - that we are brought into a relation of membership in him. The righteousness, therefore, of which we become possessed, by union with Christ, is not ours in any such sense as though we had a part in the merit of working it; but only, as the robe wrought by Christ and bestowed by his grace, covers the nakedness of all his members.” 

Surely, the legal standing of Christ is present. Baird goes on to note, however, that even Hodge grounds the legal standing in the mystical union: 

“Dr. Hodge denies any “mysterious oneness” between us and Adam, by which his sin is really and criminally ours. By parity of reasoning, a similar denial should be made in the case of Christ and his people. But, here, the professor takes the opposite position: - “To be in Christ Jesus signifies to be intimately united to him in the way in which the Scriptures teach us this union is effected, viz., by having his Spirit dwelling in us. The phrase is never expressive of a merely external or nominal union” [Hodge, a Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans]. Thus we are justified, not by Christ’s righteousness extrinsic to us and only nominally ours, but the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” – Rom. Viii. 1, 2. The power of the Spirit of Christ was the law or principle of holiness in him, the cause of the righteousness of the Mediator; and that Spirit, given to us, and uniting us to him, conveys a title in that righteousness thus wrought in him." (The Elohim Revealed, pgs. 430, 448)

 

Tyler 

The mystical union is not the basis on which I appear just before God but a gift that is extended to me from God’s justification. When one reasons otherwise, one constantly reasons secretly in a circle. If all the actions of grace following upon the mystical union become mine on the basis of this union, the question must still always be asked: On what basis do I share in the unio mystica with Christ Himself? If it is true that no grace can come to me on the basis of Christ’s merits as long as I am not in Christ, how is it ever possible that I would be implanted in Him? This implanting cannot occur on the basis of being in Christ, for it is precisely the implanting that effects being in Christ.

-Vos

 

Ken Hamrick 

The sin of Adam is actually immediately imputed to us at the moment that we all--within Adam--sinned. First, we sinned, becoming sinners in fact. Then, depravity and imputation of guilt were equal consequences. Our propagation from the substance of Adam means that we were involved and justly implicated in his sin due to a participation in his nature and being (as Baird calls it, "inbeing"). We were in Adam when he sinned, participating in it according to our mysterious, germinal (or "seminal") presence. On the Christ-side of the parallel, it is the opposite in a sense. We are guilty of Adam's sin because we were in him when he sinned, and subsequently born out him. But we are not born out of Christ; we are reborn into Him. We were not in Christ when He lived a humanly righteous life and suffered the wrath of God on the cross; but we are in Him now, and the Christ in us now brings all of His human experiences with Him when He is spiritually joined to us through the Holy Spirit. Just as the spiritual union of all of us in Adam identified us with Adam and implicated us in his sin, our new spiritual union with Christ identifies us with Him--so that it can now be said of us that we have been crucified with Him and seated in heavenly places in Him. We gain an ownership in the deeds of the Head to whom we are spiritually united as one man, whether Adam or Christ. As sinners, we stood in need of two human experiences in order to satisfy the law of God: 1) We need the experience of having lived a perfectly righteous life from cradle to grave; and 2) we need (as sinners) the experience of having endured the complete wrath of God against sin. Christ brings these two human experiences to the union when His Spirit is sent into our hearts. That's how His atoning death and righteousness are applied to us. Adam's sin was propagated to the many, but the many are being justified by union into the One. God did not merely impute righteousness--He put Christ in us! 

 

Me:

WLC Q. 66. What is that union which the elect have with Christ? 

A. The union which the elect have with Christ is the work of God’s grace, whereby they are spiritually and mystically, yet really and inseparably, joined to Christ as their head and husband; which is done in their effectual calling. 

This effectual calling logically precedes justification, not proceeds from it.

 

Ken Hamrick 

Are we saved strictly and only for our benefit? Are we not saved for the higher purpose of God's glory? Faith and regeneration are indeed needed for our salvation, but so are the atoning death of Christ and election itself; so if we cannot be saved without our faith and regeneration having first been purchased by the cross, then what purchased the benefits of Christ's atoning death and our election? God in the decree chose to save a people for Himself. He works out this decree in time by regenerating and bringing to faith whom He will. Without the cross, God could not save anyone; but with it, He is able to save anyone, since anyone who is joined to Christ will share in atoning death and in His righteousness.

 

Tyler 

The legal basis for all grace lies in being reckoned in Christ by the judgment of God. This actual relationship in the justice of God is reflected in the consciousness of the sinner when he believes, for by faith he acknowledges that there is no righteousness in himself, and that the righteousness by which he stands righteous before God is transmitted to him by imputation. Now as far as what is judicial is concerned, it could have remained at this. Without effecting a life-union between Christ and believers, God still could have transmitted His righteousness to them. Then, however, imputation would only appear in the consciousness. Grace would have only been revealed as grace to the consciousness, without its imprint having been stamped deeper into the life of the believer. Now, however, God acts otherwise. He does not stop with this acknowledgment in the consciousness that righteousness is transmitted and that, consequently, each gift of grace is given for Christ’s sake. To strengthen this impression, He also has all grace actually come from Christ and establishes a life-bond between the Mediator and believers. The legal fellowship reflects itself in a fellowship of destiny. All that the sinner receives flows from the living Christ. The result is that the sinner not only knows as an idea that he will receive everything for Christ’s sake but also experiences in life how everything comes from Christ. He is regenerated, justified, sanctified, glorified, but all this is in the closest bond with the Mediator.

 

Me:

"...the righteousness by which he stands righteous before God is transmitted to him by imputation... Without effecting a life-union between Christ and believers, God still could have transmitted His righteousness to them." 

This appears to be quite a stunning statement. Am I correct to understand that Vos thought that the God of truth could have viewed a sinner as righteous apart from life-union to Christ? 

What do you make of WLC 66 making the mystical union logically prior to justification?

Ken Hamrick 

Hodge and the men at old Princeton really did a good job of making out their position to be the only "classically reformed position." You would benefit from reading George P. Hutchinson's book, "The Problem of Original Sin in American Presbyterian Theology." The classically reformed position was not a Federalism scrubbed of Realism, but one that included a realistic understanding of a "sin of participation" in Adam. As Robert W. Landis, in "Original SIn," said, prior to the Princeton School's position, Adam's sin was imputed because it was ours, but Princeton saw that the sin is ours only because it was imputed.

 

Ken Hamrick 

George Fisher states, “The Augustinian and the Federal Theories of Original Sin Compared,” Discussions in History and Theology, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880):

The fundamental idea of the Augustinian theory is that of a participation on the part of the descendants of Adam in his first sin; in consequence of which they are born both guilty and morally depraved. The fundamental idea of the federal theory is that of a vicarious representation on the part of Adam, in virtue of a covenant between God and him, whereby the legal responsibility for his first sinful act is entailed upon all his descendants; participation being excluded, but the propriety of his appointment to this vicarious office being founded on our relation to him as the common father of men. The Augustino-federal or semi-federal theory is a combination of the two, the covenant relation of Adam being prominent, but participation being also, with more or less emphasis, asserted […] […]The federal doctrine is the offspring of the seventeenth century. In fact it may also be said of it, in the form in which it is now held, that it is the offspring of the eighteenth century; since, in the preceding age, the great majority of the theologians who adopted the theory of a covenant coupled with it the Augustinian principle. That is to say, they maintained the Augustino-federal or semi-federal doctrine as above defined.

Fisher understands the modern mistake:

The mistake of the modern defenders of imputation is in ignoring and denying the capital fact of a TRUE AND REAL PARTICIPATION IN ADAM’S SIN, which still formed the groundwork of the doctrine of original sin long after the federal theory came into vogue. They mistake history likewise, by ascribing their own purely federal view to the great body of Calvinistic theologians in the seventeenth century, who were Augustinians as well as federalists, holding to the second type of doctrine which we mentioned in the beginning–the Augustino-federal.

 

Ken Hamrick 

To abstract legal standing from ontological involvement in the crime is to abstract justice from truth. Was it necessary for there to be a real Adam in history? If God can justly reckon us to have been in a union with Adam which itself did not exist in substantial reality but only existed in God's mind, then He can justly reckon us to have been in union with an Adam who did not exist in reality but only in God's mind. Was it necessary for Christ to die for our sin? Could not God have merely reckoned Him to have suffered and died? No, God is a God of truth and a God of reality. He is not satisfied to merely reckon things as if they comport with His justice, but instead, He brings those things into being so that reality will satisfy His justice.

 

Ken Hamrick

@vantil101 I sincerely thank you for the discussion and for your patience. You and I agree on far more than we disagree. I have enjoyed many hours of your podcasts and teaching videos, and hope to enjoy many more. May God continue to bless this ministry!

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Now, for a few comments as an addendum:

1. I still have not been able to verify that the reason why Geerhardus Vos states it would be unjust for God to impute the sin of an angel to men is, as Dr. Tipton's asserts, that Vos "extensively discusses" that the "natural image of God (Gen. 1:27; 2:7) is the necessary condition for representation. Angels lack just that psycho-somatic image endowment." 

If anyone knows where Vos discusses this, please let me know, as I am quite interested in what "psycho-somatic image endowment" angels apparently lack. From recollection, the belief angels are not images of God is not a monolithic one amongst Reformed theologians.

2. In one comment, Dr. Tipton stated:

The natural relation established by special creation and the covenantal relation established by special providence--distinct yet simultaneous--are not two sides of the same coin but distinct aspects of God's creational relation to Adam in covenant. The natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for the terms of probation, the advancement of Adam's estate, the sanctions of blessing or curse, or the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption.

Initially, I was going to give a fuller response to the entirety of this comment. What I actually did - which was, I think, the correct approach, as it avoided getting bogged down in too much detail - was to self-edit and simply ask for the justification of one particular assertion:

For my own clarification, may I ask if it would be unjust to impute sin to a non-participant in sin? "The natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for… the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption." Why not?

In my opinion, neither he nor another commenter could justify this assertion without begging the question and posing a false dichotomy. For example, the comment that "Adam is a federal/covenantal head, not an ontological head" seems to be a false dichotomy. Adam does not have to be one or the other. 

Or, if the assertion was simply that Adam actually is not an ontological head (although he could have, in principle, been one), unfortunately, no argument was given as to why he is not an "ontological head" (if, by that, we are referring to traducianism). 

Now, while I think my approach was the correct one, as it focused on the implicit assumptions of the idea of what special providence entails, on the other hand, I will say that in my initial writeup, I was actually going to agree (at least for the sake of argument) that, in my mind, "the natural simpliciter, while necessary, is not sufficient to account for the terms of probation, the advancement of Adam's estate, the sanctions of blessing or curse..." That is, my primary pushback was against the inclusion of "the imputation of guilt and transmission of corruption" as something for which Adam's nature was merely necessary and not sufficient, not the other covenantal features mentioned. 

Thus, federal headship, while grounded in natural headship, does not completely collapse into it. For I, like them, would agree that certain facets of the covenant do not appear to follow by necessity from Adam's natural headship and relationship with us. That is, there appear to be facets of the covenant contingent on God's free choice.

For example, I don't personally see any reason why the probation must have included a command not to eat from a certain tree rather than, say, not to sleep on a certain island (e.g. C. S. Lewis's excellent book, Perelandra). Of course, God's command not to eat of a tree is certainly compatible with His nature. This is unlike, say, a divine command to commit idolatry, which I think is impossible. But I can see how certain commands might be the result of God's free choice.

Thus, as Dr. Tipton states, there does appear to be a natural relation established by special creation distinct from a covenantal relation established by special providence (the latter of which could have been otherwise in some respects, such as in the specifics of the probation).

This agreement is qualified by two points, though: 1) the covenantal relation is grounded in the natural relation such that any commandments God gives, judgments He makes, or truths He reveals would be consistent with His own nature and the nature of the reality He freely chose to create; 2) to argue that the reason the imputation of Adam's sin is just or even sufficiently possible is grounded in the [contingent features] of the covenantal relation over against the natural relation begs the question (as I pointed out) and calls into question whether there is a real participation and/or union with Adam corresponding to God's imputation and knowledge.

3. One area in which I think I can improve my apologetic for a realist understanding of original sin is to better my understanding of the historic context of the WCF and its authors. As I tend to find myself in these sorts of discussions with fairly strict confessionalists, mastering the historical theological background on this subject might help to persuade others that the realist view deserves a fair hearing (even if I think it already deserves a fair hearing on the merits of the arguments for it rather than its historical pedigree). 

An open question I have is whether something like Van Dixhoorn's The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly would have any relevant material on if, when the WCF was formulated, its authors discussed natural and federal headship, traducianism, etc. Baird and Landis themselves cite individual Reformers, the WCF, and its authors on the issue of participation in Adam's sin et al. - I would imagine that Shedd does too - but perhaps having a list of transcribed, primary source material also would be helpful in showing that the realist view deserves a fair hearing in contemporary Reformed discussions on original sin.

On the other hand, on some level, even the best Reformed theologians are fallible. All sides of the above discussion know our rule of faith is Scripture. In future discussions, then, I hope to see more interaction with questions regarding why Reformed theologians believed what they did. 

As an example, I notice that in his most recent podcast on Vos' Biblical Theology (link), Dr. Tipon and Camden Bucey make a passing allusion to the realist view of original sin, only to note that Vos rejected the position. Given that the topic of the podcast was Vos' view of the nativity of Christ - not original sin per se - I doubt that their mention of it was meant to suggest that a realist view of original sin necessarily implies that Christ would have had a sin nature passed to him. 

For example, paternal traducianism - in which the father's spirit is propagated to his offspring and through which the offspring is ultimately said to have participated in Adam's sin - is a species of realism about original sin which would avoid the suggestion that the virgin born Christ inherited a sin nature. Thus, I rather suppose the point of the passing comments by Dr. Tipton and Cameron Bucey was to disassociate someone like Vos from even having to entertain such a question as a traducian or realist about original sin might be asked about Jesus' human nature. That's fair enough. 

There are, however, other questions which someone who, as Vos indeed does, rejects the realist view should, at some point, answer. For example, I consider it unfortunate that the discord conversation seemed to fizzle out precisely at the point I was hoping to receive an answer about whether "Vos thought that the God of truth could have viewed a sinner as righteous apart from life-union to Christ." I would have found any response to this question illuminating and (potentially, depending on the answer) persuasive. I hope the cordial spirit of the discussion will enable more opportunities for such answers in the future.