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said that God is somewhat under obligation to provide a cure for it. The Wesleyan Arminians
admit that this inborn corruption also involves guilt.
c. The New School (New Haven) theory teaches that man is born with an inherent tendency to
sin, in virtue of which his moral preference is invariably wrong; but that this tendency cannot
itself be called sin, since sin always consists exclusively in conscious and intentional
transgression of the law.
d. The Theology of crisis stresses the solidarity of sin in the human race, but denies that sin
originated in an act of Adam in paradise. The fall belongs to pre- or super-history, and is already
a thing of the past when the historical Adam appears upon the scene. It is the secret of God’s
predestination. The story of the fall is a myth. Adam appears as the type of Christ in so far as it
can be seen in him that life without sin is possible in communion with God. Says Brunner: “In
Adam all have sinned — that is the Biblical statement; but how? The Bible does not tell us that.
The doctrine of original sin is read into it.”[Man in Revolt, p. 142.]
2. DIFFERENT THEORIES TO EXPLAIN THE CONNECTION.
a. The realistic theory.
The earliest method of explaining the connection between the sin of
Adam and the guilt and pollution of all his descendants was the realistic theory. This theory is to
the effect that human nature constitutes, not only generically but numerically as well, a single
unit. Adam possessed the whole human nature, and in him it corrupted itself by its own
voluntary apostatizing act in Adam. Individual men are not separate substances, but
manifestations of the same general substance; they are numerically one. This universal human
nature became corrupt and guilty in Adam, and consequently every individualization of it in the
descendants of Adam is also corrupt and guilty from the very beginning of its existence. This
means that all men actually sinned in Adam before the individualization of human nature
began. This theory was accepted by some of the early Church Fathers and by some of the
Scholastics, and was defended in more recent times by Dr. Shedd. However, it is open to
several objections: (1) By representing the souls of men as individualizations of the general
spiritual substance that was present in Adam, it would seem to imply that the substance of the
soul is of a material nature, and thus to land us inevitably in some sort of materialism. (2) It is
contrary to the testimony of consciousness and does not sufficiently guard the interests of
human personality. Every man is conscious of being a separate personality, and therefore far
more than a mere passing wave in the general ocean of existence. (3) It does not explain why
Adam’s descendants are held responsible for his first sin only, and not for his later sins, nor for
the sins of all the generations of forefathers that followed Adam. (4) Neither does it give an
answer to the important question, why Christ was not held responsible for the actual