Ayn Rand on "Free Will" and Justice

"A sin without volition is a slap at morality and an insolent contradiction in terms: that which is outside the possibility of choice is outside the province of morality. If man is evil by birth, he has no will, no power to change it; if he has no will, he can be neither good nor evil; a robot is amoral. To hold, as man's sin, a fact not open to his choice is a mockery of morality. To hold man's nature as his sin is a mockery of nature. To punish him for a crime he committed before he was born is a mockery of justice. To hold him guilty in a matter where no innocence exists is a mockery of reason. To destroy morality, nature, justice and reason by means of a single concept is a feat of evil hardly to be matched. Yet that is the root of your code. Do not hide behind the cowardly evasion that man is born with free will, but with a 'tendency' to evil. A free will saddled with a tendency is like a game with loaded dice. It forces man to struggle through the effort of playing, to bear responsibility and pay for the game, but the decision is weighted in favor of a tendency that he had no power to escape. If the tendency is of his choice, he cannot possess it at birth; if it is not of his choice, his will is not free" (Ayn Rand, For the New Intellectual, 1961, pp. 136-37).

How Did Adam and Eve Sin if they were created "Good"?

In a prior post, I argued that not even Adam and Eve had a truly free will. If this is true, then the so-called Free Will Defense for the Problem of Evil fails, for they were created with a predisposition towards evil.

R. L. Dabney, the 19th century Calvinist theologian, attempts to explain how beings created as "very good" (Gen. 1:31)could sin. He writes:

How a holy will could come to have an unholy volition at first, is a most difficult inquiry. And it is much harder as to the first sin of Satan, than of Adam, because the angel, created perfect, had no tempter to mislead him and had not even the bodily appetites for natural good which in Adam were so easily perverted into concupiscence. Concupiscence cannot be supposed to have been the cause, pre-existing before sin; because concupiscence is sin, and needs itself to be accounted for in a holy heart. Man's, or Satan's, mutability cannot be the efficient cause, being only a condition sine qua non. Nor is it any solution to say with Turrettin, the proper cause was a free will perverted voluntarily. Truly; but how came a right will to pervert itself while yet right?

... The most probable account of the way sin entered a holy breast first, is this: An object was apprehended as in its mere nature desirable; not yet as unlawful. So far there is no sin. But as the soul, finite and fallible in its attention, permitted an overweening apprehension and desire of its natural adaptation to confer pleasure, to override the feeling of its unlawfulness, concupiscence was developed. And the element which first caused the mere innocent sense of the natural goodness of the object to pass into evil concupiscence, was privative, viz., the failure to consider and prefer God's will as the superior good to mere natural good. Thus natural desire passed into sinful selfishness, which is the root of all evil. ...

When we assert the mutability of a holy will in a finite creature, we only say that the positive element of righteousness of disposition may, in the shape of defect, admit the negative, not being infinite (Systematic Theology, ch. 29).

So, if I understand Dabney correctly, Adam and Eve fell because they were created as finite beings. Even as a candle will eventually burn out due to its finiteness, the first human beings eventually sinned due to their finiteness. Thus, it was inevitable that they sin.

Shedd (vol. 2, p. 149)Adam was holy by creation, but not indefectibly and immutably so. The inclination of his will, though conformed to the moral law, was mutable, because his will was not omnipotent. When voluntary self-determination is an infinite and self-subsistent power, as it is in God, the fall of the will is impossible. But when voluntary self-determination is a finite and dependent power, as it is in man or angel, the fall of the will is possible. ... The power to the contrary; the possibilitas peccandi, or power to originate sin ; belonged to Adam's will because of its finiteness.



If it was inevitable that the first couple sin, then how can they be held culpable?

see discussion at Tribalogue

Unfortunately, since we are not in the position of Adam and since the Bible is silent on the issue, we can only answer with speculation. Granted, it is speculation that is informed by the rest of Scripture, but this isn't an issue that the Bible addresses specifically.

We do know that Adam's sin did not catch God off-guard. It was foreordained, yet in such a way that Adam freely sinned. These concepts are all clear from Scripture. While I do not have a perfect answer for the question, I will give you my speculation with the caveats that 1) I haven't really worked through this in its entirety and 2) I do not hold this position dogmatically and can easily be influenced away from it.

My current belief is that barring active influence from God in the form of common grace, it is impossible for anything to remain in a perfect state. That is, the natural state of everything is entropy, and this is true of man and his spirituality. Thus, it is impossible for God to create a man who of his own power (that is, apart from God's continual upholding via His grace and mercy) will remain steadfast and not turn toward sin.

The advantage to this argument is that it would explain why Adam sinned (i.e. God removed His grace and let Adam be as Adam would be, which invariably means Adam would "break" and sin) and it explains why we will not sin in heaven (i.e. God will not ever remove His grace from us, and therefore we will continually rely on His power to keep us in communion with Him for all time).

The drawback is that it relies on saying that it is impossible for God to create a man who would not sin if God ever let the man exist of the man's own power. However, I wouldn't have a problem with this in theory since I do not believe God can make a round square or any other contradiction, and if it is logically impossible for God to create a person who cannot sin without His continual grace then we don't have a problem there.

So the question would be, is it logically possible for God to create a person who is able of his own power to remain faithful to God? And I haven't worked through that one yet.

But at least it gives me something to think about.
12/16/2007 9:58 PM


see discussion Puritanboard

http://www.puritanboard.com/f15/how-did-adam-sin-27525/

You are also going to have to avoid the Roman error: that Adam's human nature was naturally deficient, that it tended toward concupiscence without the donum superadditum, special grace needed to remain sinless

Rome says concupiscence (inclination to wrongdoing) is natural. Dabney says, "concupiscence was developed." At least Dabney admits the result is mysterious, and not a natural occurrence

Did Adam and Eve have a Free Will?

The Free Will Defense for the problem of evil really relates only to Adam and Eve; because the Bible teaches that after the fall of the original couple, men's hearts incline towards evil. Man's nature post-fall is corrupt and is bent in the direction of doing evil. Man is totally depraved, meaning that left to himself, he will choose against God. So, according to historic Christianity, the only persons who were truly free were Adam and Eve. That means that the so-called Free Will Defense employed by Christian apologists really only applies to the original couple.

But were they even truly free? What precisely does it mean to have a truly free will? Does it mean that nothing is causing you to choose one option over another or does it mean that nothing is influencing you to choose one option over another? It seems that it must be the former, since it seems impossible for one to make any choice without being influenced by something.  But is a will that is influenced, truly free?

I guess the question becomes how much influence is required before one is no longer culpable for his choice? In the criminal justice system, the defense of entrapment can be used by someone who believes that he was "improperly induced" into committing a crime. While this area of the law is complex and somewhat subjective (see Criminal Law , Thomas J. Gardner and Terry M. Anderson, [10th ed., 2009], 146-49 and Criminal Law,  David C. Brody, James R. Acker, and Wayne A. Logan [2001],  313-14), it is agreed that the defendant must have had a predisposition to commit the crime before he encountered the undercover officer in order to avoid the charge of entrapment. In other words, to prove the entrapment defense, you have to show that the crime is one that you would not have committed and that you had no predisposition to commit without the inducement of an undercover agent. Police cannot select random citizens to participate in organized sting operations in hopes of generating an arrest. There must be some compelling evidence that a specific individual has a propensity for committing such a crime.

So, in a sting operation, a person is put in circumstances which allows him to reveal his true nature or character, and predispositions. Thus, unless Adam was entrapped, he already had a predisposition to disobey God and eat the fruit. That would mean his nature was already corrupt before he fell (Jesus says that the desire to do something wrong is just as evil as the act itself, see Matt. 5:27-28). It seems therefore that God must have created Adam this way. God created him with a predisposition to commit evil. If Adam had no predispostion to commit the crime of eating the fruit and the snake convinced him to do so, that would be entrapment according to western jurisprudence.

Since one's will (i.e., what one chooses) is based on one's nature (i.e., what one is), it doesn't seem plausible to me that Adam had a truly free will. He was predisposed to disobey God from the moment he was created because he was created with such a nature (see next post).

So much for the Free Will Defense, as the fact is no one, not even the first couple (assuming they really existed) had a genuinely free will.

"Original Sin" and Infant Salvation--Part Two

This post is a continuation of yesterday's discussion of "original sin" and infant salvation.

You will often hear evangelicals talk about the “age of accountability.” The fact is that it is not a biblical term but one invented by evangelicals to try to explain how God can allow children into heaven even though they are born sinners. Usually the notion is that God does not hold them accountable for their sins because they didn’t know any better. John MacArthur, in a sermon on Infant Salvation, argues that the term ought to be “condition of accountability” because in his view there is no definite age in which a person becomes accountable—it varies from individual to individual. He says:

…we’re not talking an age of accountability–get this in your mind–we’re talking about a condition of accountability! Get the word “age” out of this discussion. We’re talking about a condition of accountability, not an age. Who qualifies then, in our discussion, as an infant or a child who, dying, is saved–who dying, instantly goes to heaven? Who are we talking about? Answer: those who have not reached sufficient, mature understanding in order to comprehend convincingly the issues of law and grace, sin and salvation. It’s not an age; it is a condition. From child to child, it varies, and, as I said, you have to include in this those who grow up mentally disadvantaged, mentally disabled, mentally retarded so as never to be able to have a sufficient, mature understanding and a convincingly comprehensive grasp of law and grace and sin and salvation. This is not an age; this is a condition. That’s who we’re talking about: people in that condition where they cannot, in a mature way, understand and comprehend convincingly these issues.

So, MacArthur believes that any mentally challenged individual, someone who doesn’t have “a comprehensive grasp of law and grace and sin and salvation,” is not condemned by God (even though they were born sinners as a result of original sin) but will be granted admission to heaven. How does he defend this idea from his sole authority for such beliefs, the Bible?

He begins by citing three OT passages. First, he cites Psalms 139:16 and says:

God is intimately involved in every little life, every life. It’s not just a chain of procreative acts that He inaugurated; He is there in every single conception. These are precious thoughts because this indicates to us how precious every life is. Every life is so precious that God knows it all, plans it all, guards and protects it all, never loses sight of anything…and they must matter to him. They must matter to him. We could conclude from that alone that since God is by nature a Savior and since God is not willing that any should perish but all should come to repentance and since God would have all men to be saved, there’s every reason to believe, just from that alone, that a caring God who created that life to begin with, who superintends and guards that life, who knows intimately everything about that life–should that life perish physically in its infancy, there would be every reason from that Psalm alone to trust the grace of God, who is by nature a Savior, in behalf of that life.

I think its a huge stretch to say that infants go to heaven on the basis of this Psalm. In addition, if God cares so much about the little ones, why does he order his people to slaughter them (in Deut. 20:16; Joshua 6:21 and in I Sam. 15:3)? And why just two Psalms (137:9) prior to this one, did he say regarding the Babylonians: Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!? Doesn't sound to me that God cares about all little children.

Second, he goes to Job 3:16-17, which says: Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child, as infants who never see the light? "There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest . On the basis of these two verses, he concludes: Job understood that dying as an infant would bring one to rest and one would escape the pain of suffering. He certainly didn’t believe that infants that die go to hell and some eternal torment, but rather had the confidence that they enter into rest . That is some very poor exegesis, Mr. MacArthur, there are least two problems with his conclusion. First, there is no doctrine of eternal torment anywhere in the OT, so of course, its not here. Second, if the stillborn infant goes to heaven on the basis of this verse then so do the wicked, because v. 17 says: There the wicked cease from troubling .

Next, he goes to Ecclesiastes 6:3-6 to argue for infant salvation. He says: Solomon laments. He laments that a stillborn child is better off than a person who lives a thousand years twice and doesn’t enjoy the right things. He says, “What’s the point of living two thousand years if you don’t ever enjoy true goodness? You’d be better off a stillborn child.” . Surely MacArthur knows that he is on shaky ground to base any kind of major doctrine on Ecclesiastes. The book of Ecclesiastes is typically viewed, even by evangelicals, as being from the viewpoint of man apart from God. It is how things appear to man "under the sun" (i.e., apart from God). What the author is here saying is that life is meaningless (KJV, "vanity") to the man "under the sun". Even if one lived for two thousand years, he would never find meaning "under the sun." From that standpoint, it would be better never to have been born.

At this point, MacArthur feels the need to trumpet his Calvinism. He says:

You see, it’s only pure, true, reformed soteriology–salvation–only pure, true, reformed soteriology can account for the fact that fallen, sinful, guilty, depraved children who die with no spiritual merit, die with no religious merit, die with no moral merit of their own, can be welcomed by a holy God into eternal glory! Only pure, reformed theology can allow for that because only the purist theology believes that salvation is all by grace! How were you saved? By what? Grace! You say, “Well, if God just takes all the babies to heaven, that’s just grace!” Right! But how were you saved? By law? What do you want? Law for babies and grace for you? You had no more to do with your salvation than a helpless infant.

What MacArthur is failing to take note of, however, is that the Scripture says that salvation is by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8). Over 150 times in the NT, it is said that a person is saved through faith . He does not explain how an infant or a mentally challenged adult can exercise faith . Therefore, he is going beyond the Scripture (extra-Biblical) to argue that infants go to heaven. Now maybe that doesn't matter to those of us who are agnostic or atheist but it should matter to those who claim like MacArthur does, to believe what he believes because the Bible teaches it. The truth is that MacArthur cannot stand the notion that little infants go to hell, so he has to pretend that the Bible teaches they go to heaven.

He anticipates my objection: You say, “But, but, but, but, but they didn’t believe! They didn’t believe!” They couldn’t believe. They couldn’t believe. And so in grace and mercy and sovereign election, through the sacrifice of Christ and his resurrection freely applied to them, they are ushered into God’s kingdom.

First, where does MacArthur find what he just said in the Bible? He doesn't. He finds it in the books of his favorite Calvinist theologians. Second, if infants are saved because they "couldn't believe," as MacArthur argues, then why aren't those who have never heard the name of Jesus automatically saved? They couldn't believe either. Paul himself said in Romans 10:13-14: For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? A person cannot believe in someone of which they have never heard. So, if MacArthur is right, then all those who have never heard are on their way to heaven as well. Consistency would demand it.

Then MacArthur goes to Rev. 20:11-12 to argue that people who go to hell, go there because of their evil deeds. He proclaims: Scripture always, always connects eternal condemnation to the sinner’s deeds–works–always. In John 8:21 and 24, the most significant damning work, Jesus says, “Because you believe not in me, you will die in your sins and where I go, you’ll never come.” The greatest of all the sinners’ evil works is unbelief, unbelief. And unbelief is always singled out as the primary damning sin. But if what he just said is true, then how are infants saved? Because as MacArthur has already told us: "they can't believe."

He then goes back to the OT to try to substantiate his point. He refers to Jonah 4:11 and states regarding Nineveh: There are people there, God says, who deserve compassion because they don’t know the difference–they don’t know the difference between their right and left hand. He’s speaking of those who are infants or those who are mentally incapable of understanding truth. God says they deserve compassion because of that condition. Isn't it passing strange that God didn't think the children of the Canaanites nor the children of the Amalekites deserved any compassion. What has happened? Has God's moral sensibilities evolved? (I think its obvious that the moral sensibilities of the writers of Scripture have evolved). If the entire Bible is inspired, as MacArthur thinks, then why does God care about the innocent children in Jonah 4 but not in Joshua 6 or 1 Samuel 15?

In MacArthur's second sermon in his two part series on Infant Salvation, he begins by stating that his view on the mentally underdeveloped being automatically saved by God does not apply to the "heathen." He states:

Now, just briefly to recap what I said last week to sort of get you in the flow, we asked the question: who are we referring to when we talk about these infants, these little ones, these children who die and are saved? And the answer is this: those who have not reached sufficient, mature understanding to comprehend convincingly the issues of sin and salvation. Let me say as a footnote that does not apply to the heathen. Adult heathen are caught up in the Romans 1 passage: “When they know God, they glorify Him not as God, become empty in their imaginations, create their own gods, and worship the creature more than the Creator.” We’re not talking about them; we’re talking about those who have not reached sufficient, mature understanding to comprehend the issues of sin and salvation. I told you there is no age of accountability, but there is a condition of accountability and it is true for children and it is true for some adults who are mentally retarded or handicapped.

I think MacArthur's position is contradictory. He says that infants are not condemned because they do not "comprehend convincingly the issues of sin and salvation" . However, neither do the "heathen" nor any of the unregenerate in his system of theology. According to 1 Cor. 2:14, the unbeliever cannot understand spiritual things which would of course include the "issues of sin and salvation" to use MacArthur's words. The passage says : The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The Calvinist likes to use the analogy of trying to explain a beautiful sunset to a blind person as being similar to trying to explain the need for salvation to an unregenerate man. If this is true, how could God hold the unregenerate man culpable for not believing any more than we could hold the blind man culpable for not being able to visualize the sunset?

MacArthur once again goes to the OT to try to establish that children are innocent. He cites Deut. 1:39 and explains:

God basically said to them, “You’re not going in the land. You’re not going in because of your willful rebellion, because of your willful sin, but your little ones who you said would become a prey if you went in and took the land, even though I told you I would fight for you and with you; your little ones who this day have no knowledge of good or evil, they’ll go in and I’ll give it to them and they’ll possess it.” What God is saying is, “Your rebellion…your rebellion…causes you to forfeit this blessing. I’ll give it to them because they don’t bear the same culpability that you do.”

If MacArthur is right in what he is saying here, then we do have a particular age in which God begins to hold people accountable, its the age of twenty. Listen to Numbers 14:29-31:

your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected.

This is not really important for my discussion except to point out once again that Mr. MacArthur is not really taking into account all that his Bible teaches but is cherry-picking the parts that he likes.

He now turns to Jer. 19:4-5 and states:

God viewed them as innocent even though they’re not baptized babies of “believing parents”; these are the children of idolaters! They would be outside the faith of Israel, even though they would be Jewish people. They would be outside the will of God! They would be, essentially, pagan Jews who are worshipping idols, burning their babies! And even the burned babies of idolaters are viewed here as innocent. That is God’s assessment of them.

So, the babies of these idolaters are innocent but the babies of the Canaanites and the Amalekites were not? Why doesn't Mr. MacArthur see the contradiction?

Finally, MacArthur turns to the only passage in the Bible that may give some credence to his notion that babies go to heaven. Its the story of the child born to David and Bathsheba as a result of their adulterous affair. David prays and fasts for the child but it dies anyway. As an aside here, its once again contradictory to say that God would not kill the innocent but then here he kills the child of David and Bathsheba. Did the child sin? No, the parents did. Why then should the child be killed?

At any rate, after the child dies, David says: While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, "Who knows whether the Lord will be gracious to me, that the child may live?" But now he is dead. Why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he will not return to me (2 Sam. 12:22-23). MacArthur's argument is that David knows he is going to heaven when he dies and the baby will be there waiting for him. That sounds good but is it really the teaching of the passage? First, the OT's teaching about the afterlife is pretty scarce and its pretty obscure. Many passages state that everyone both good and bad go to the same place, namely Sheol. The full blown concepts of heaven and hell don't really appear until the NT probably due to the influence of Persian religions. Second, even if David is saying that his child will be in heaven, MacArthur could not within his theological system apply this same principle to all children. At best it would apply only to children of believers (which is precisely what many Reformed theologians teach but MacArthur rejects). Third, it would seem that a doctrine that would have so much practical and pastoral value, that children who die go to heaven, would be taught much more clearly than it is here and would be in multiple passages in the Bible not limited to one obscure passage buried in the middle of the OT.

Perhaps in anticipation of an objection like mine, MacArthur turns now to the NT. He cites the words of Jesus in Matthew 18:14: "So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." Okay, but according to 2 Peter 3:9, its not God's will that anyone perish but according to evangelicals like MacArthur many will perish. So, I don't see that this verse does anything to support his contention that babies automatically get "instant heaven" as he calls it.

As his final argument, MacArthur turns to Matthew 19:13-14 in which Jesus blesses little children. Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." He argues that Jesus is here clearly saying that the kingdom of heaven will be populated by children who have died before reaching maturity. But is that really what Jesus is saying? Look at the parallel passage in Mark 10: 13-15: And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." (cf. Luke 18:15-17). MacArthur cites the only one of the three synoptic gospels that leaves out the statement of Jesus that one must become like a little child in order to enter the kingdom. Jesus is not saying that children automatically go to heaven if they die (maybe they do or maybe they don't but that is not the point of his teaching), he is saying that one must become as humble and unassuming as a little child in order to enter the kingdom (cf. Matt. 18:2-4).

So, there you have it. MacArthur has examined every passage in the Bible that could be used to support his notion that children and the mentally underdeveloped get "instant heaven" when they die. Did he prove his point? I don't think so. The simple fact is that the Bible nowhere states that children who die in childhood automatically go to heaven. Evangelicals desperately wish that it did. It seems like it should say so but sadly it doesn't. To complicate matters more, strict Calvinists such as MacArthur who emphasize original sin and total depravity have to explain how these babies, even though depraved and wicked in their view, cannot be condemned by God when they die. Basically what Mr. MacArthur and his friends have to do is to eisegete a few passages in the Bible and then conclude that because their God is so loving and kind, he must accept all children and mentally underdeveloped folks into heaven. They know intuitively that it would be wrong to condemn such people. Their intuition is correct. But we also know intuitively that it would be wrong to condemn to eternal hell people who never even heard the name of Jesus. We also know intuitively that its wrong for God to hold all of us culpable for what Adam supposedly did thousands of years ago. We also know intuitively that its wrong to punish an innocent person in the place of a guilty person. Yet, MacArthur and his evangelical friends will ignore these intuitions but they can't ignore the intuition that babies don't deserve condemnation. At least they do have some semblance of a heart.

"Original Sin" and Infant Salvation

One of the difficulties within evangelical theology relates to what happens to infants when they die. Because evangelicals believe in original sin, they believe that infants are born corrupt and sinful. Listen to John MacArthur, the wildly popular Christian author and preacher, in a sermon on Infant Salvation:

the Bible is absolutely crystal-clear that all children are sinners from conception–all children. The principle of iniquity is embedded in the human race. Children are born morally corrupt. They are born with an irresistible bent towards evil. And any notion that children are born morally neutral and free from a predisposition to sin is absolutely contrary to Scripture.... All humans are born in sin. If infants were not sinful, if they were not morally corrupt, then they wouldn’t die. If they were born innocent or pure or morally neutral, there would be no basis for their death! The very fact that they die indicates that the disease of sin is there in them, because sin is the killer. It is in their inherited sin nature that the seeds of death are planted.

Since infants are sinners and since faith is the means through which one receives forgiveness and salvation, and since infants obviously are not capable of faith, how then can infants be saved? The simple fact is that the Bible does not address this issue. However, since it seems terribly unfair and even hideous to think that infants would be condemned to an eternal hell, evangelicals have sought ways to explain how these infants can be saved.

MacArthur opens his sermon on infant salvation by saying:

Some of you who tuned into the Larry King Show, a week ago Saturday, will remember that Larry fired a question to me on the air–it came out of nowhere–a question that reveals a nagging, troubling issue in the human heart. He asked me, “What about a two-year-old baby crushed at the bottom of the World Trade Center?” I answered, “Instant heaven.” He replied with another question: “Wasn’t a sinner?” I again answered, “Instant heaven.” All kinds of strange answers have been offered in the past. We don’t need to deal with those; we need to know the right answer.

MacArthur is right. Not all Christians throughout church history have held that infants automatically go to heaven. Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus (329-374 CE), held that only baptized infants go to heaven and that unbaptized infants do not. He said unbaptized infants will neither be admitted by the just judge to the glory of Heaven nor condemned to suffer punishment, since, though unsealed [by baptism], they are not wicked (Oration on Baptism, par. 23). Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) was the first to deal with the issue in any detail. In a chapter entitled: Unbaptized Infants Damned, But Most Lightly, he said: It may therefore be correctly affirmed, that such infants as quit the body without being baptized will be involved in the mildest condemnation of all. That person, therefore, greatly deceives both himself and others, who teaches that they will not be involved in condemnation....

Augustine's reasoning was that baptism removes original sin and therefore baptized infants can go into the presence of God but unbaptized infants cannot. Thus, he came up with the idea of a place which was not quite heaven and not quite hell. Medieval theologians called it Limbo of infants (Latin, limbus infantium). In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI released a report which said: "The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation. There are reasons to hope that God will save these infants precisely because it was not possible (to baptise them)." (Some people saw this as a public relations move because Islam teaches that babies go to heaven and the RCC and Islam are in stiff competition in many 3rd world countries where the infant mortality rate is extremely high.)

Most Protestant theologians have held that all infants go to heaven, although the Westminster Confession leaves the possibility open that some infants might not. It says in chapter X, paragraph III: Elect infants, dying in infancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh when, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons who are incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.(10.3)Some hard-core Calvinists (e.g., Jonathan Edwards ) have implied at least that there may be some infants who are not elect. This is very much a minority view in today's world where most everyone sees it as completely unjust for God to damn infants. In previous times, it might have been acceptable for some religions to teach that not all infants go to heaven but it is a public relations nightmare in today's world.

The simple fact, however, is that the Bible does not really answer this question definitively. Thus, theologians are left with a dilemma. How does one hold that babies are born sinners and condemned before God (i.e., original sin) and yet also hold that if they die before reaching maturity, they go to heaven? I will explore how evangelicals attempt to handle this thorny issue in the next post.

Is Imputation a "Legal Fiction"?

Most evangelicals hold to the doctrine of imputation to explain how man is considered guilty for Adam's sin, how Christ is accounted guilty for man's sin, and how the believer is regarded as righteous in Christ. The doctrine of imputation is based on the Greek word λογίζομαι (logidzomai) which occurs 49 times in the Greek NT. The KJV translates it: to reckon, to count, to impute. It is a bookkeeping term used to refer to placing something on one's account. While the word is not used, the idea is found in Philemon 1:18, where Paul tells Philemon in regard to Onesimus (a runaway slave): If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account (ESV). So, as mentioned above, there are 3 elements to the doctrine of imputation in evangelical theology: 1)God put Adam's sin on his posterity's account; 2)God put man's sins on Jesus' account, (and Jesus paid the debit on the cross, i.e., penal substitution), 3) God puts Christ's righteousness (as a credit) on the believer's account. While there is some biblical basis for #3 in Romans 4, #'s 1 and 2 are based on theological inference not explicit biblical statements.

Romans 4:3-5 says: For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was counted (logidzomai) to him as righteousness." Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted(logidzomai) as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted (logidzomai) as righteousness (ESV).

This passage seems to teach that the believer's faith is considered or regarded (logidzomai) to be righteousness by God, thereby resulting in the believer being acceptable (i.e., justified) before God and not subject to his condemnation.

A question arises here as to whether the believer is truly righteous or just considered to be righteous by God. Some have argued that what we have here is a legal fiction. This was actually a major contention between the Reformers and the Catholics and remains today an essential difference in the soteriology (i.e., doctrine of salvation) of conservative Protestants (i.e, evangelicals) vs. the soteriology of conservative Roman Catholics. The Catholics maintain that the believer's justification is not an imputed righteousness which would be a legal fiction but is rather an infused righteousness, whereby the believer is in truth now righteous (or more accurately in the process of becoming righteous).

It has not only been the RCC that has seen this problem, however. John Nevin, a conservative Reformed theologian and perhaps the best student of Charles Hodge the noted Princeton theologian of the 19th century, argued that the doctrine of imputation as taught by the Reformers was in fact a legal fiction and could not therefore be a true doctrine. He wrote:

The judgment of God must ever be according to truth. He cannot reckon to anyone an attribute or quality that does not belong to him in fact. He cannot declare him to be in a relation or state that is not actually his own, but the position merely of another. A simply external imputation here, the pleasure and purpose of God to place to the account of one what has been done by another, will not answer. Nor is the case helped in the least by the hypothesis of what is called a legal federal union between the parties, in the case of whom such a transfer is supposed to be made; so long as the law is thought of in the same outward way, as a mere arbitrary arrangement or constitution for the accomplishment of the end in question. The law in this view would be itself a fiction only, and not the expression of a fact. But no such fiction, whether under the name of law or without it, can lie at the ground of a judgment entertained or pronounced by God. (The Mystical Presence and Other Writings on the Eucharist, pp. 190-91 cited in Real Union or Legal Fiction by Mark Horne).

I think Nevin is right. God cannot be considered just if he simply regards man as righteous without man in fact being righteous. Its a legal fiction and as Nevin says, the judgment of God must ever be according to truth.

How, then does Nevin resolve the problem without becoming a Roman Catholic? He believes that in the Eucharist, the believer mystically receives the body and blood of Christ, not the physical body and blood as the Roman Catholics teach (transubstantion), but the spiritual body of Christ. Nevin is following the Westminster Confession that in the Eucharist one partakes of Christ’s flesh and blood in a non-physical way.

The Westminster Confession (29.7) states:

Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive, and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.

Thus, for Nevin, the imputation of righteousness is not a legal fiction but a spiritual reality. Interestingly enough, his renowned teacher, Charles Hodge was adamantly opposed to Nevin's teaching. He accused him of in fact resorting back to Roman Catholicism calling his doctrine, popish. The great majority of Reformed scholars today would agree with Hodge against Nevin. In addition, most evangelicals today, following the Baptist position, would see the eucharist (or as they prefer to call it, the Lord's Supper) as simply being a memorial and the elements as being purely symbolic. They would reject both the RCC doctrine of transubstantiation and the Reformed doctrine of the real presence.

I think Nevin was right, though, to see the problem of imputed righteousness being a legal fiction and therefore being impossible for a God whose nature is truth. Here is just another internal contradiction for evangelical theology.

More on "Collective Culpability"

In a prior post, I discussed what I called collective guilt and how it helps to understand why the Israelites saw nothing wrong with the genocide ordered by Yahweh and why Paul could say that all of mankind was condemned because of Adam's sin. What I have since discovered is that it would be better to use the word culpability rather than guilt.

The reason is that according to biblical scholars, and especially those of the Context Group (individuals who use the social environment of biblical times to understand the Bible), the concept of guilt as a psychological phenomena was not present in biblical times. Guilt is a term that has meaning with regard to an individual not to a collective group. Thus, while my basic argument was sound, it would be much better to speak of it in terms of collective culpability. While I am not 100% convinced that the ancients did not experience individual guilt (for example, see Psalms 51 as well as the other penitential Psalms), nevertheless, to avoid confusion, I think its better to speak of collective culpability rather than collective guilt.

I am told by Hector Avalos that he discusses this collective culpability concept in his book, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Alas, I have not read the book yet but it is on my list.

In addition, some have pointed out that the Hebrew Scriptures also teach individual culpability, for example in Deut. 24:16 and Eze. 18. That is definitely true. I think its reasonable to assume that both ideas were present in the ancient world. It would be an example of the either-or fallacy to say that only one could have been present. I do think its interesting to note, however, that both Deuteronomy and Ezekiel would fall pretty late in the historical development of the Hebrew canon. Thus, I conclude that the concept of individual culpability was beginning to overtake the idea of collective culpability at that particular historical junction. That is not to say that the concept of individual culpability was completely absent prior to the 6th century BCE, I think you can find it in other places of the Hebrew Scriptures as well, going back to Genesis 9:6 for example. I think both ideas were present simultaneously for a long period of time. However, eventually the idea of collective culpability lost support because it was hard to defend philosophically. It is still present in the modern world, however, not only among primitive peoples but also among modern societies. The attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem to be examples of a collective culpability mindset.

Also, the objection has been raised that since Jewish theology has never held to the doctrine of original sin and they were a collectivistic society in ancient times, therefore, its wrong to conclude that Paul was using the concept of collective culpability when he wrote Romans 5. This is a very interesting question. Here is my tentative explanation. Paul was the evangelist to the Gentiles. Before he could convince them that Jesus died for their sins, he needed to convince them that they were sinners. One of the ways he attempted to do this was by tying all of mankind together in Adam, so that when Adam fell, all men fell. I think, one of the reasons, that this argument resonated with many of the Gentiles was because they had the concept of collective culpability within their social setting and culture. It doesn't resonate with modern Westerner's like me because I have jettisoned the notion of collective culpability as indefensible philosophically.

Collective Culpability and Original Sin

I have been reading a number of Christian philosophers and apologists lately on the subject of Original Sin. It is very interesting to see how they attempt to defend the idea that we are all somehow guilty for what Adam and Eve did. This idea of imputed guilt runs counter to our innate moral intuitions. Yet, the Bible teaches it and traditional, historic Christianity has held it as a basic doctrine. Why is that? I think its because in the social world of the Bible, people thought in terms of collective guilt. How else can one explain events such as the execution of the Egyptian first-born in Exodus, the execution of Achan's entire family for his individual sin (Joshua 7:24-25), the killing of all the Canaanite children because of the sins of their parents, the killing of the Amalekites in Saul's day because of the sins of their ancestors 400 years prior, and so on. When we come to the New Testament, we find Paul saying that all of mankind is guilty and condemned because of the sin of Adam (Romans 5).

This concept of collective guilt, which was prominent in the societies of biblical times, is I think why the Bible writers themselves saw no moral problem with the events they describe. The writer(s) of Joshua did not see any moral issue with the Canaanite genocide nor does Paul see any moral objection to the condemnation of the entire race due to the sin of Adam. They seem oblivious to the moral concerns that plague Christian philosophers and apologists today with regard to these issues.

While the people of Bible times may have had no problem with the concept of collective guilt, we certainly do today. Why does it bother us but not the Bible writers? My opinion is that our moral sensibilities have evolved to a higher state. The Bible writers also saw nothing wrong with slavery, polygamy, the treatment of women as inferior, the execution of homosexuals, and etc. These things are recognized today by all civilized people as immoral practices.

H.D. Lewis wrote an article in 1948 entitled, Collective Responsibility (reprinted in Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics, eds. Larry May and Stacey Hoffman [1992]). He begins his essay with a very strong statement: If I were asked to put forth an ethical principle which I considered to be especially certain, it would be that no one can be responsible, in the properly ethical sense, for the conduct of another (p. 17).

He says that if we hold to collective responsibility, then we shall be directly implicated in one another's actions, and the praise or blame for them must fall upon us all without discrimination. This, in fact, is what many person do believe, and it is very hard to uphold any form of traditionalist theology on any other basis. Of late this has been very openly affirmed by noted theologians who, if they seem to do very great violence to common sense, have, at any rate, the courage and consistency to acknowledge the implications of their view, and do not seek to disguise them by half-hearted and confused formulations (pp. 17-18).

He goes on to say that the concept of collective responsibility is barbarous (p. 21).

Similarly, Gregory Mellema argues that the concept of collective guilt is a primitive belief. He writes:

One of the ways in which contemporary Western culture is often contrasted with "primitive cultures" is in the manner in which moral responsibility is conceived. People in some primitive cultures supposedly think in terms of entire tribes bearing responsibility for the violation of mores or breaking of taboos by one member of the tribe. This collective way of thinking about moral responsibility is based upon the idea of the guilt of one individual being transmitted to all members of a clan or tribe and is quite foreign to contemporary Western ways of thinking about moral responsibility. Also foreign to contemporary Western ways of thinking is the idea that responsibility can be eliminated by destroying a symbolic object such as a voodoo doll. People sometimes argue that collective conceptions of moral responsibility are associated with primitive or even superstitious approaches to morality and have no place in contemporary Western approaches to morality. They credit Western morality that it has managed to overcome these supposedly primitive and superstitious notions by thinking of responsibility in strictly individualist terms. ( Collective Responsibility ,[1997], p. 2)

I think Lewis and Mellema are correct. It is a primitive and barbarous way of thinking to impute guilt to someone for the action of another. As R. S. Downie argues: Collectives do not have moral faults, since they don't make moral choices, and hence they cannot properly be ascribed moral responsibility. … For there to be moral responsibility there must be blameworthiness involving a morally faulty decision, and this can only occur at the individual level (May and Hoffmann, p. 49).

Much of the philosophical discussion of collective responsibility took place in an attempt to assess blame for the holocaust. Was the entire nation of Germany responsible for the evil enterprise or were only certain individuals within Germany responsible? Iris Young describes the debate:

. . . [Hannah] Arendt insists that moral and legal concepts such as guilt and blame should not be applied to entire groups or collectives. The paradigm case for her was Nazi Germany, about which she had debates with Karl Jaspers, among others, concerning the appropriateness of labeling the German people as a whole “guilty” for Nazi crimes. She insists that the concept of guilt (or innocence) applies strictly to individual deeds. Guilt loses its meaning if applied to a whole group or community related by association to a wrong. “Where all are guilty,” she says, “nobody is. Guilt, unlike responsibility, always singles out; it is strictly personal.” (“Collective…” p. 43) Twenty years earlier, in “Organized Guilt and University Responsibility,” Arendt expressed this thought in almost the same words; “Where all are guilty, nobody in the last instance can be judged.” (“Organized Guilt…”, p. 126) The point of locating guilt or leveling blame is precisely to single out: to say that this person, or these people, by virtue of what they have done, bear direct moral and often legal responsibility for a wrong or a crime. Others do not, because their actions have not done the deeds. The practice of blaming or finding guilty requires singling out some from others, and applying some sanction against them or requiring compensation from them. The application of moral and legal guilt in this sense becomes meaningless if we extend it to a whole collective which is associated with the crime or wrong by virtue of being in the same society and passively allowing it. Guilt loses its practical meaning if we say that everyone in the society, or a large portion of people, is guilty of crime or wrong committed in a society or in its name (Guilt versus Responsibility: A Reading and Partial Critique of Hannah Arendt, paper presented to the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 2005, pp. 2-3)

I think it is possible to distinguish between collective responsibility and collective guilt. Responsibility for an action can be attributed to someone who did not directly commit the action, but guilt can only be ascribed to the one who did directly commit the action. For example, if my non-adult child were to vandalize my neighbor's property, I would have the responsibility to repair the damage. However, I would not be personally guilty for the action of my child and I could not be prosecuted for it. So, in that sense, I think it may be correct to say that as a white American living in the 21st century, I have some responsibility to try to repair the damage that was done by my ancestors holding slaves in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. However, I can not and should not be held personally guilty for their actions.

Therefore, if one were to assume the truth of the Bible and evangelical Christianity (which I do not), then one could possibly make the argument that all of mankind shares some responsiblity for trying to repair the damage done by Adam's sin and mitigate its effects, but that is entirely different than holding each individual human being personally guilty for what Adam is said to have done.

Thus, I think Christian philosophers and apologists are fighting an impossible battle in trying to justify things such as the Canaanite genocide or the traditional doctrine of original sin. These ideas made sense in a society that accepted the notion of collective guilt but they make no sense in our modern day. Thankfully, our moral sensibilities have evolved beyond those primitive concepts.

Paul Copan's Comments on the "Original Sin" Post

Paul Copan posted some comments today in response to my blog post Christian Philosophers Attempt to Defend "Original Sin"--Part Two

I am delighted he did and below are his comments with my response.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your quick reply and your willingness to engage in dialogue. I appreciate your kind spirit in the comments.

I understand you are very busy, as I am as well, so this exchange will probably not satisfy either of us. I would be pleased to meet you, so don't hesitate to let me know next time you are in Atlanta area. Alas, I am not in south Florida very often (with the weather here today, I envy you).

Now on to your comments.

Thanks, Ken, for devoting a post to my essay. I'm sorry you've given up on Christ/the Christian faith--a very painful withdrawal, no doubt. Knowing what little I do of your story saddens me. Not to pigeon-hole you, but I've met so many who have come from a "Christian fundamentalist" background who have similar narratives. Maybe next time I'm in the Atlanta area (in November), we can get together for a cup of coffee.

I am open to the evidence wherever it might lead me. I once believed very similarly to how you believe now and changed. I will change again if I am convinced that it is merited. By the way, I attended most of the sessions at the 2009 Apologetics conference in November. I want to hear the very best that evangelicalism has to offer in terms of defending the faith. I met Bill Craig and Mike Licona briefly.

As for the "fundamentalist" background, yes I know Bob Jones University has a reputation for taking some extreme positions (in fairness though, this was due largely to the administration not the faculty). However, when I use the word "fundamentalist" to describe my former beliefs, I am using it in the historical sense of the term. For the first half of the twentieth-century, there was little or no difference between the terms "fundamentalist" and "evangelical." Of course, that has since changed but my criticisms are focused against traditional evangelical theology, not some contemporary fundamentalist caricature.

I'll try to respond briefly and won't be able to hit all of your points. As you know, the problem of evil is a problem for everyone, and agnostics/atheists have, in my estimation, both the problem of evil and the problem of goodness do respond to (see below). Getting rid of God provokes more problems than solutions. Furthermore, focusing on the problem of evil to the neglect of the wide range of evidence for God is all too common and typically skews the discussion (see below on this too). But we are discussing an aspect of the problem of evil; so let's jump in.

I don't think that the non-believer in the Christian god, which is how I prefer to characterize myself, has a problem with regard to the existence of evil; at least not to the extent that the Christian does. I don't have to explain how a perfectly good God has allowed things to happen the way they have. In my case, I can simply say that, Yes, moral evil exists and it is attributable to the fact that people sometimes act in selfish ways. They don't always act in selfish ways and, therefore, there is good in the world as well. Natural evil, which I think is an insurmountable problem for the evangelical Christian, is attributable to the fact that this is the way our world exists. Its explainable purely on naturalistic terms.

1. The "damage" view I've taken is held by a number of orthodox Christian theologians and philosophers (Bruce Demarest, Millard Erickson, Thomas Morris, etc.).

Okay, fair enough. I never said it was heretical or outside the pale of evangelical orthodoxy. I think, however, to use it as a theodicy, i.e., that sinning is not necessary, leads one very close to Pelagianism. Of course, Pelagius believed that a few people never sinned which I think would be required if your theodicy were to work.

2. Theism's being better able to "deal with" evil than non-theistic worldviews seems borne out by atheistic thinkers like Richard Dawkins (who states that in a world of electrons and selfish genes, there is no good or evil--just mere "blind, pitiless indifference"), Bertrand Russell ("the foundation of unyielding despair"), physicist Steven Weinberg (the more the world seems comprehensible, the more "pointless" it seems). This common position isn't too surprising if matter constitutes all reality. If God exists, though, objective purpose does as well. This is powerfully analyzed in Gordon Graham's *Evil and Christian Ethics* (Cambridge).

I fail to see why the non-believer has a problem here. The world is the way it is; there is both good and evil. The Christian, on the other hand, has to explain why there is evil (both moral and natural) even though his God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

3. To further reinforce my point, your argument assumes that human beings (perhaps creatures in general) have value and ought not to be harmed. But why think this? How do you move from "is" to "ought" (the naturalistic fallacy), from valuelessness to value? Stacking up lots of collocations of valueless atoms won't get you to value. Affirming value slyly borrows from the metaphysical capital of theism. In opposing harm, you assume intrinsic value exists, yet this has somehow arisen from valueless processes. Plenty of atheists/agnostics (including existentialists and nihilists) understandably reject objective value given the worldview context of naturalism. Again, if a good God exists, finite value derives from the Creator's value.

Why do I need a God or a holy book to tell me that people are valuable? I am a person and obviously I consider myself valuable. I love other people and I consider them valuable. I can deduce from this that all people have value. On the other hand, when I look at the Bible, I see that some people have more value than others. The Canaanites had little value apparently. Slaves and women in the OT had less value than men, and so forth. If I use the Bible as my guide, I might conclude that not all human beings have value.

4. In my book *Loving Wisdom* (Chalice), I argue that God's nature and existence account for many things that naturalism/non-theism simply cannot (and I cite plenty of non-theists to reinforce the point): beauty, the use of reason, the beginning of the universe, the fine-tuning of the universe, human dignity/worth/rights, consciousness, free will/moral responsibility. These features make excellent sense and are reasonably expected if God exists, but are difficult to account for and not predictable given naturalism.


Perhaps. However, I don't think we have to postulate a God and certainly not the Christian God to explain beauty, reason, beginning of universe, etc. As for beauty, its in "the eye of the beholder," meaning its subjective. Reason has to exist because if it didn't we would not know it. The origin of the universe, assuming it had an origin, is something that has not yet been explained and may never be explained. To simply say that "God did it," however, is not in my opinion an answer.

5. As for the charge of defaulting to middle knowledge (the fixer of fixers!) and how "Copan knows this," note my wording ("Perhaps it's the case..."). Furthermore, I would say the following: (a) there is biblical warrant for middle knowledge (e.g., David at Keilah); (b) we assume this as intuitively plausible ("if only I had done X instead of Y"); (c) I am seeking to reconcile this intuitively plausible philosophical (and biblically-supportable) concept with the biblical affirmation that God desires that none perish/all be saved (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9); and (c) so long as this suggestion is at least logically possible (even if it's not the exact solution), then this seems to be a plausible point.

I would grant, based on my knowledge of the Scripture and the traditional description of God's attributes, that middle knowledge is certainly harmonious with the Christian concept of God. What I don't grant, however, is that anyone can prove that all the people who have been born on this earth would have done exactly what Adam and Eve are said to have done. To me, that is an ad hoc argument. Our experience tells us that people do different things in different circumstances. Sometimes they act in ways we would never have predicted. So, I just don't accept the assumption (and at the end of the day, that is all that it is), that every person would have done what Adam did.

6. As for the Canaanite question, see my response to this in the essay "Yahweh Wars" at the Evangelical Philosophical Society website (www.epsociety.org) anticipates a larger work *Is God a Moral Monster?* (Baker, January 2011).


I did read your article, Yahweh Wars and the Canaanites: Divinely-Mandated Genocide or Corporate Capital Punishment? Responses to Critics in Philosophia Christi and frankly I found it disappointing. In my mind, your response did not answer the criticisms raised by both Wes Morriston and Randall Rauser. In addition, Hector Avalos wrote a reply to your original article which you did not answer in your second article. I reviewed your articles previously on my blog and also reported on Hector Avalos' article. If you desire, you can view them here.

I do look forward to your upcoming book on the subject because I honestly don't think there is any way to justify the slaughter of the Canaanites but I am willing to listen to what you have to say.

7. As for Louise Anthony's example, there *is* a difference between children and adults! I would be careful about pushing this too hard. Also, God wasn't expecting our first ancestors to know what evil was, but he rightly expected them to trust in his goodness and the rightness of his command, even if they didn't know the outcome.

I would agree that there is a difference between children and adults. However, how long had Adam and Eve lived, in your opinion, before they were tempted? Did they have all the experiences and training that a person would normally have by the time they reached adulthood?

8. As for the question the unfairness of our bent to sin, I think it is important to keep in mind that God is more concerned about our agreeing with and living in accordance with our disposition to sin--not individual sins per se. We are self-condemned when we agree with our self-centered tendency against God/goodness. Also, far from Pelagianism, I acknowledge that divine grace is needed to remove the stain of sin/damage that has come to us all. Further, I point out the notion of the moral gap--that our falling short of the moral ideals of which we are aware can, if we are willing, prompt us to seek outside assistance ("grace").

You say that we are condemned when we agree with our self-centered tendency against God. How can we not agree with it, at least some of the time? If we are capable of not agreeing with it all of the time, then we are capable of not sinning and if we are capable of not sinning then we have arrived at Pelagianism.

9. As far as the charge that professing Christians have (yes, sadly) been as guilty as others of immorality throughout history, I'm surprised you take this somewhat ad hominem tack (do counterfeits disprove the genuine article, Jesus and his teachings?). Also, even the noted atheist philosopher Jürgen Habermas has argued that the singular impact of the Jewish-Christian worldview on human rights and the West's moral development is intellectually inescapable: "everything else is postmodern chatter." Have a look at Alvin Schmidt's book *How Christianity Changed the World* (Zondervan).

I mention the inhumanity of Christians ONLY because you were arguing that the Christian religion provides the only cure for man's degeneracy. If your assertion is correct, then should not it be empirically verifiable that Christians live a less degenerate life than non-Christians? As far as positive benefits produced by Christianity throughout history, I would not argue with that. I would only say that it has been a mixed-bag. For example, conservative Christians in the south defended slavery from the Scripture for many years. Conservative Christians have used the Bible, and some still do, to keep women on a lower plane than men. The examples could be multiplied.

I could say more, but this will have to suffice, and I'm afraid, given all I have on my platter, that I may not be able to come back to the discussion. Again, let's connect the next time I'm in town. And if you're in the West Palm Beach, FL area, please look me up. it would be a pleasure to get to know you.

Many good wishes to you.

Paul

Paul, thanks for taking the time to respond. If you have time to write more, I would certainly be pleased to discuss these matters further. I don't claim to have all the answers but I think I have learned most of the questions :)

Take care,

Ken

Christian Philosophers Attempt to Defend "Original Sin"--Part Two

Paul Copan, the current President of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, has written an article entitled, Original Sin and Christian Philosophy (Philosophia Christi, 2 [2003]: 519-41, available on-line), in which he makes a valiant attempt to defend the Christian concept of original sin (see my response to Keith Wyma's attempt in Part One of this series).

He begins by stating that God did not create man as a sinner but rather, as with all of God's creation, he created him good (Gen. 1:31). Copan says: We must remember that Genesis 1-2 comes before Genesis 3, that human nature was first made good by God but has been corrupted. Yes, but didn't God know that the man he created was vulnerable to falling? Didn't God stack the deck against him by: (1) allowing the deceiver (i.e., the serpent) into the garden; (2) not warning him of a deceiver who does not have his best interest in mind; (3) naming the tree with an innocuous name, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (would it not have been better to call the tree something like, the tree of misery and death?); and (4) expecting him to know the difference between good and evil before he ate from the tree which supposedly gave him that knowledge? It seems pretty obvious that God wanted Adam to fall and arranged things in such a way that it was extremely likely that he would do so.

Louise Antony, in her presentation at the Notre Dame conference, My Ways Are Not Your Ways: The Character Of The God of The Hebrew Bible, used an illustration to demonstrate how unfair God was in the Edenic test. She says imagine a parent tells her child before sending him out on Halloween night: Do not eat any of the candy that you get until I have a chance to inspect it. Then, unbeknownst to the child, the parent employs an evil person to give the child some poisoned candy. The evil conspirator tells the child to go ahead and eat the candy. The child says, No, my mother told me not to eat any candy until she inspects it first. The malefactor says: Oh it will be okay. Go ahead and eat it.. The child eats it and dies. Who is most culpable in this story?

After a lengthy discussion of Romans 5:12 and its theological implications, Copan concludes, in contrast to classic Protestant theology, that guilt is not transferred through original sin but merely damage. He argues:

It seems both theologically permissible and apologetically useful to speak about original sin in terms of “damage” rather than “[alien] guilt”; but even if “guilt” is somehow involved, it should be construed as conditional: The traditional teaching of original sin in Augustinian tradition implies, among other things, that we have (a) a sinful disposition which is inherited from Adam and (b) Adam’s guilty status is imputed to us apart from any immoral actions humans may commit. As we have seen, (b) would present problems: Are all without exception imputed an alien guilt and therefore damned to separation from God—including infants, the senile, and the retarded?

Copan's denial of the imputation of guilt provides him with a way out as it relates to the damnation of infants and others who are mentally underdeveloped. One could respond, however, that if God is sympathetic to the plight of those who are mentally challenged, through no fault of their own, then why isn't he sympathetic to the plight of all mankind who, according to Copan, are born morally damaged through no fault of their own?

Copan posits the challenge facing Christian apologists with regard to original sin:

The challenge for the Christian is to put in perspective our corporate connection to Adam (something individualistic Westerners resist) while also accounting for individual human responsibility (which makes sense of the justice of punishment and personal moral accountability).

He believes this challenge is appropriately met by the distinction made by Alvin Platinga of sinning vs. being in sin. He writes:

Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga speaks of sin in two respects: (1) sinning—something for which one is responsible (“he is guilty and warrants blame”), and (2) being in sin—a condition in which we find ourselves from birth. Whereas I am culpable for a sinful act, original sin is not something for which I am culpable: “insofar as I am born in this predicament, my being in it is not within my control and not up to me.” (Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 206-07).

Does this really resolve the issue? If one is born into the condition Platinga describes, can one then avoid sinning? If not, then how can one be held culpable for something that one cannot avoid? Copan continues:

We are born with an original corruption, a self-centered orientation that permeates all we do. Simply being born does not render an infant guilty before God—even if, say, atonement is still necessary for removing the stain of sin. So, though we do not sin necessarily (i.e., it is not assured that we must commit this or that particular sin), we sin inevitably (i.e., in addition to our propensity to sin, given the vast array of opportunities to sin, we eventually do sin at some point).

He says that we do not sin necessarily but inevitably. I see that as a distinction without a difference. If it is inevitable that I sin, then how is it not necessary that I sin? Unless Copan wants to argue that some people could live their entire lives without sinning, then I don't see that this distinction provides any support to his theodicy. I am quite certain that Copan does not want to espouse Pelagianism.

Copan wants to say that original sin involves only the transmission of damage, and not the transmission of guilt. Somehow, he believes this gets his God off the hook, so to speak. I don't agree. If I loan my car to my friend knowing that the car has defective brakes and my friend wrecks the car as a result of the bad brakes, who is most culpable?

Next, Copan argues that the Christian view of original sin, at least the version he espouses, is a better explanation of the world than any non-Christian explanation. He writes:

The doctrine of original sin has the benefit of universal empirical verifiability; thus it supports a Jewish-Christian anthropology as opposed to more neutral or optimistic views of human nature "sans" grace: G.K Chesterton (Orthodoxy, p. 15) is noted for his famous statement: “Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved."

Copan continues:

Naturalistic explanations of moral evil (e.g., evil as “abnormal” or “maladjusted” according to psychological/therapeutic categories) are woefully inadequate to deal with their depth and horror, whereas the Christian worldview furnishes a sufficient context to understand it.... how can we make sense of personal moral responsibility and punishment if our behavior is nothing more than acting out our physiology? Are we truly willing to say that the Columbine killers were simply “abnormal”—not evil?"

First, I reject Copan's implication that the word evil can only be used in a theistic worldview. In my non-theistic worldview, evil describes an act (or the person who perpetrates the act) that causes harm or injury to an underserving individual. Second, Copan argues that any indvidual moral responsiblity is erased if our behavior is nothing more than acting out our physiology? If that is true, then why doesn't the notion that man is born into this world as damaged goods with a propensity to commit evil erase his moral responsiblity? Third, I do believe the actions of the Columbine killers, as well as other notorious criminals, can be explained pathologically without any appeal to original sin. One does not have to resort to a belief in God or the Bible to explain such actions. As a matter of fact, one could argue that a God who orders genocide (including the killing of children and infants) is himself pathological. (Maybe man created in the image of God involves more than Copan realizes).

Copan continues his attempt to defend the justice of original sin by stating that God has provided the remedy. He writes:

In defending the idea of original sin, we must point out to the critic that we cannot consider this doctrinal dangler without the narrative/historical context which explains the solution God has provided. If we follow the secularist line, we are driven to despair because of the track record of man’s inhumanity to man generation after generation. Naturalistically speaking, we are without hope for resolution to our deep depravity. Thus we must keep in mind the complete diagnosis—the damage as well as the basis of and the hope for full repair.

Once again, Copan's argument fails. First, to say that God provides a cure for the illness that man is born with does not eliminate the culpability of the creator. He created man knowing that man would fall and that all future human beings would be born, due to no fault of their own, into this diseased condition. Now that he provides a cure, he is to be excused? Unless he grants them that cure from the moment of conception, I do not see how this removes his culpability. Second, Copan says that naturalism has no resolution to the problem of man's inhumanity to man. I think the argument could be made that Christianity's solution has failed as well. As many inhumane actions have been perpetrated by Christians throughout history as by any non-Christian group.

Copan continues: . . . we must avoid the red herring of original sin as inevitably condemning a person without the cooperation of his will. This original corruption, by itself, does not condemn us, but rather when we align ourselves with it. But is man capable of doing otherwise? He has already argued that the universality of sin is the most empircally established truth of Christianity. It doesn't appear that man has any choice. If my car is out of alignment (an analogy that Copan uses to refer to the effects of original sin),is it any surprise when it pulls too much in one direction? Can it do otherwise?

As seems to be the case with most Christian apologists today, when everything else fails, middle knowledge is trotted out as the ultimate theodicy. Copan acknowledges that a common complaint is that it is not fair or just for all men to be held accountable for a sin that they did not personally commit. Here comes middle knowledge to the rescue:

Perhaps it’s the case that had any of us human beings been in Adam’s place, each of us would have freely chosen to eat of the fruit and refused to trust God’s word and character. What if every human being God created would also have fallen into sin just as Adam did? Though human sinlessness in the garden is logically possible, it could be the case that those human beings God has actually created would have, according to His middle knowledge, chosen the same Adamic course, resulting in the same Adamic curse. The selection of another person would have produced no different outcome. Had any of us actualized human beings been in Adam’s place, none of us by his free choice would have avoided bringing about the fall and its consequences.

I would like to know how Copan knows this to be the case. Does he have access to God's middle knowledge also? Did God tell him this? It seems to me that this argument from middle knowledge is nothing more than an assumption created ad hoc to explain a problem for Christian theology. If one assumes the concept of middle knowledge to be valid (and many philosophers do not), and if one assumes that God only created those whom he knew would fall if placed in the same circumstances of Adam (and there is no way we can know that), then perhaps Copan has a point. But there are too many assumptions here to satisfy me. We might as well just do what some other Christians do and assume that whatever God does is right and if we don't understand it, it is because it is beyond our comprehension. That is much simpler and takes a lot less work to explain. Then again, Christian apologists might be out of a job if they took that approach.

So here we have another effort by an evangelical Christian to justify the ways of God to man. Although it was a valiant effort, it fails in the final analysis.

Christian Philosophers Attempt to Defend "Original Sin"--Part One

Keith D. Wyma, a Christian philosopher, has written an article entitled, Innocent Sinfulness, Guilty Sin: Original Sin and Divine Justice (in A Reader in Contemporary Philosophical Theology, ed. Oliver Crisp, pp. 278-91). His essay begins:

As a college sophomore taking a course in Reformed theology, I was troubled by the doctrines having to do with original sin. Eventually I raised my questions in class. "How can it be just," I asked, "for God to create me in an already sinful state? And if I start life with original sin, and so am sinful such that I cannot help but do evil, how can it be just on God's part to condemn and punish me for it?" In response, the professor stared at me, drew a long nasal breath, and in stern tones of righteous indignation proclaimed, "Well, I think that's the kind of question a good Christian just wouldn't ask!"

In the next paragraph, Wyma says: But my questions remained, and they nag at me to this day. (p. 278). With that, he sets out to assuage his nagging doubts, by presenting several arguments to justify the doctrine of original sin. I do not find his arguments persuasive but I have to admit that they are very creative.

How does he try to answer the problem of a just God holding us guilty for being sinners when we are born into that condition? The first justification points to our complete inability to assert any moral obligation upon God with regard to the status of our creation. He says that since life is a gift, not something that is owed to us, it follows that we cannot make any claims on God as to how we shall exist (p. 279). And since by definition, creatures cannot be infinite, we are created as finite beings. He continues: To apply the general point to our question about original sin, our moral capacities to identify and to perform the good, or to identify and to avoid evil, must have some boundaries. As finite beings, we creatures necessarily have some circumstances possible in our lives such that under those conditions we could not know or could not do the good (p. 280).

Does this answer hold any merit? I think not. God may have the right to create us any way that he chooses but does the then have the right to condemn us because we do not measure up to his perfect standard? That does not seem just to me. He is holding us accountable for not meeting an impossible standard. Let's say that my son is born deaf. Would it be just for me to punish him because he didn't hear something that I said? Obviously not.

Wyma goes on to lay out a second argument in an attempt to justify his Christian doctrine of original sin. He makes use of the middle knowledge argument of Luis de Molina, a 16th century Jesuit priest. While Wyma admits that the concept of God's middle knowledge is highly controversial (p. 282), he believes that it can be defended and therefore goes ahead to make use of it. God's middle knowledge, for those who may not know, is the knowledge that God has of counterfactuals of freedom. In other words, God knows what any free being would choose to do in any possible world. On that basis, Wyma argues:

In creating Adam's progeny, God could restrict himself to the set of possible humans who would freely have done as Adam did in the circumstances of his temptation and fall. That is, I propose that the humans who do exist, and those who have existed and who will exist, constitute some subset of those possible humans who would freely have fallen, just as Adam did (p. 282).

It seems to be very popular these days for Christian apologists to punt to God's middle knowledge to solve their problems. Of course, William Craig is famous for his use of the argument as it relates to divine election. But does God's middle knowledge, if it even exists, really solve anything with regard to the problem of man being born already condemned? I think not.

Wyma seems to realize the weakness of his argument because in a footnote, he says:

It might be asked, at this point, why God would choose to create from this set. That is, if God has middle knowledge, why wouldn't he simply create only those humans whom he knew would not fall? One answer might rely on Alvin Platinga's notion of "transworld depravity." If every possible human is essentially such (emphasis added) that in any world in which she exists, she freely does some evil, then God's choice would be constrained to the set of would-be-Adams (p. 290).

It seems to me that Wyma has just undercut his own argument. If transworld depravity is true, then there is no world where man might not choose to freely do evil because of his essentialness,then how can God condemn man for sinning? If there is something about man's essence that demands he will sin in any possible world, and God is the one who created him this way, how can God blame man? The blame must rest on the one who created man in this condition.

Furthermore, my problem with the middle knowledge argument as used by Christian apologists is this: Why couldn't God create a world in which all men freely choose to worship and serve him? Why is that impossible for an omnipotent being?

Apparently not fully satisfied with the transworld depravity argument, Wyma offers another possible justification in the footnote. Alternatively, one might appeal to supralapsarian notions that fallen-then-redeemed humanity makes for a better world than unfallen humanity (p. 290). I fail to agree. How could the world be better with sin than without sin? If that were so, however, it seems that God should be pleased with sin instead of opposed to it, because it allows for a better world.

Even after all of this, Wyma acknowledges that there is still a problem with God holding us guilty for Adam's sin. He says: If it's true that we would have rebelled as Adam did, it's one thing to skip giving us his test; but it seems a much farther step to blame us for failing it. . . . it seems unjust for us to share Adam's guilt, as only he actually committed the transgression in question (p. 284). So, what solution does Wyma now offer? He says:

I propose this: the state itself of original sin should be understood more of a shortfall than as a transgression. That is, rather than being a kind of wrongdoing, original sin resembles the Old Testament states of uncleanness. Having leprosy might have indicated imperfection that made an Israelite unfit to enter the wholly perfect presence of God, but it didn't count as a crime against the Almighty. . . . seen this way, original sin does not constitute a damning offense. Original sin is a sinful state in that its disorder disposes us to become actual sinners, but this is not itself grounds for guilt. It is a state of innocent sinfulness (p. 284).

So, according to Wyma, man is not born into a state of guilt and condemnation. He only becomes guilty once he actually commits a sin. Therefore, he can argue that anyone who dies before committing an actual sin is not condemned but goes to heaven.
I have a couple of problems here. First, the Reformed tradition, of which Wyma, I think, considers himself and the Bible itself disagree with the notion that man is not born into a state of guilt. For example, the Westminster Confession states: They [i.e., Adam and Eve] being the root of 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 original generation. David says in Psalms 51:5: Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Similarly, Psalms 58:3 states: Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies. Ephesians 2:3 proclaims that we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Romans 5:12 states: Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.

Second, Wyma's Reformed tradition has held that more than just innocence is needed for admittance to heaven. A positive righteousness, which Jesus achieved through his active obedience (Calvinists make a distinction between active obedience, i.e., Christ keeping the law perfectly, and passive obedience, i.e., his death upon the cross. The latter removes man's sin and the former provides the positive righteousness) is also required.

Now, we finally come to the heart of Wyma's argument in his attempt to justify God for original sin. He says there is an important distinction between the inevitability of sinning and the inevitability of committing a particular sin. I believe a correct view of original sin includes the former but not the latter. . . . . I thus propose that not only should the initial disposition of original sin be considered guiltless, but so also should the necessarily-subsequent state of being a sinner. However, that excuse does not extend to committed sinful acts; for those, responsibility, blame, and punishment can justly be assigned (p. 285). So, he is saying that man is only condemned before God for the actual sins that he commits.

Does this get God off the hook? Again, I think not. First, if it is inevitable that man commit actual sin because of the condition in which he is born, how can God condemn him for it when he does commit it? My dog is born in a state in which it is inevitable that he will chase a cat if he sees one. Am I right to condemn my dog for doing so? Second, I think most Reformed theologians would disagree with Wyma's definition of sin. Sin is not just acts of commission but there are also sins of omission. The Westminster Catechism defines sin: Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. In Romans 3:23, Paul defines sin as : falling short of the glory of God.In Romans 14:23, he says: For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. The Epistle of James 4:17 states: So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. On this understanding of sin, Wyma's theodicy, fails miserably.

It seems to me that if evangelical Christian philosophers are going to attempt to defend Christian doctrines, they cannot redefine those doctrines in such a way that contradicts what the Bible itself teaches (the Bible is supposed to be the ultimate authority for evangelicals) nor what evangelicals historically have said about those doctrines. If they do whatever it is that they are defending it is not evangelical Christianity.