Page 436
sin THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 436
by Adam. Human free-will is preserved, already in antagonism to the physicism of Gnosticism. A more serious conception of sin arises in the West. But a strong sensuous admixture is already introduced by Tertullian with his combination of the physical unity of 'the generations from Stoicism, and the aversion to procreation of asceticism. In his presentation of sin Augustine starts from the will. Only after the fall, sin acquired the character of a tendency to evil imposed upon nature. This produces in the human race, as the " mass of perdition," moral depravity, which is incapable of good motives, though of apparently good actions. Freedom was retained but the good was beyond its power. Adam appears occasionally as the representative of humanity; predominantly, however, he is considered as its physical head. The transmission of sin takes place by the propagation of " corrupted nature." Sin is reproduced in " concupiscence," not without involving a divine judgment. This " original sin " deserves by itself eternal damnation; even children who have not actually sinned are subject to this damnation, although in the mildest degree, unless they have been baptized. The demoralizar tion of sin, Augustine thus considers not alike in all. In the Greek conception there was only an inherited evil; to Augustine both an original sin and an original guilt. Augustinianism was opposed by Pelagianism which, as an ascetic moralism, to preserve moral self-development, held aloof from all physical representations of sin and hyper-physical ideas of grace. It denied that sin could be inherited; held that sin was disseminated by the force of example, and asserted that sin could be avoided, although admitting a habit of sinning as a moral impediment. Baptism it could not conceive as a means of grace against original sin. Grace is rather pardon and moral direction than an inner impartation of power. Semipelagianism gives man in the state of sin the capacity of acceding to grace, and of affording it an inner relation. Moderate Augustinianism was continued in medieval scholasticism. Without abandoning the formulas of Augustine a rational conception arose alongside of the religious, by which it was gradually supplanted. In the original state, no longer held as the normal, the lower powers were subordinate to reason, and reason subject to God (Thomas Aquinas). This " original righteousness " was a " superadded gift," not to be reckoned with human nature. The fall deprived man of the supernatural gift; still his reason and freedom remained. Original sin, according to Thomas, is formally a " defect of original righteousness "; materially it is " concupiscence." The last is not a natural factor, for " it exceeds the limits of reason "; it is " contrary to nature," an " injury to nature." Original sin is thus a corruption of human nature (habitus corruptvs). Duns Scotus contests the sinful character of coneupiscentia, and reduces original sin to the absence of a long-lost good.
The Reformation reasserted the religious character of sin, as a power fatal to the higher life. Art. 2 of the Augsburg Confession represents sin as the deficiency of the fear of God and trust in him, and concupiscence is subordinated as the consequence of this abnormity. Melanchthon follows Luther in
regarding unbelief as the essential element in sin. Original sin is not a mere passive heritage but the active power of a life contrary to God, 5. Doctrine and dominates the personal will. Adam of the Ref- is not only the remote ancestor but ormation. the type of every one; and the race participates in his sin. In the ideal picture of the original state " original righteousness " is not a " superadded gift," but the natural perfection of man. The fall resulted in the corruption of human nature, which is propagated in the race. Only Zwingli broke radically with the Augustinian doctrine. Without denying that Adam brought universal corruption upon humanity he would admit guilt only where the inclination to evil is appropriated by an act of will. Outside of this it is an infirmity or disease: The Formula of Concord (q.v.) maintained the total corruption of human nature, and the spiritual death of the natural man. Human cooperation in salvation, or synergism, is wholly excluded. On the other hand, the somewhat Manichean Flacian expressions of a substantial reality of original sin is excluded and the idea of the capability of justitia civUis belonging to universal reason, taught by Melanchthon, is acknowledged. The older Protestant dogmatics elaborated these views into a system, taking in all the reconcilable materials of tradition. As an illuminated background of the doctrine of sin is drawn a broad representation of the excellence of the original state, which was of the highest religious, moral, and natural perfection. The fall was a plunge to fearful depths, to be explained only by Satanic deception. The result was pride, ambition, and inordinate desire. The sinful act subjects man to divine disfavor. He becomes guilty and worthy of punishment. The penalty is death, i.e., physical death and spiritual death or deprivation of the original perfection, which is damnation. Original sin is fundamentally threefold; inherited sinfulness, inherited guilt, and inherited desert of punishment. The descent of sin and its consequences from Adam upon his progeny takes place naturally by propagation as well as legally by imputation. To escape the harshness of the latter there was brought forward the imputatio mediata, according to which the descendants' own sin was to subject them to this judgment of guilt and punishment. This device, however, led to no clear results. Adam is moral as well as natural head of the race, and his sin is justly imputed to all (Quenstedt). His sin becomes that of his descendants by propagation and the inherent original sin justifies the divine imputation. This parallelism continued only so long as the distinction between the inherited condition and the personal act was not drawn. Where sinfulness did not arrive at action, as in deceased unbaptized infants, the inconsistency became apparent. As manifest in the race, original sin is represented as blindness of reason, of a will devoted to evil, and as a riotous life of impulse. This " corrupt state " is the fruitful soil of actual sins. Previous to their commission the judgment of God by virtue of imputation overhangs humanity. As second nature this state is propagated, forming the substratum of the development of the natural life, never wholly disappearing.