Thursday, October 1, 2009

A Critical Review of Gordon H. Clark's "God And Evil: The Problem Solved": Part XI

I recently read through a section of Clark's work entitled "Responsibility and Determinism", and decided to break my critical response to it into two blog posts. The first answered the initial claim Clark makes on the basis of Romans 1: that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will, but on knowledge. I found Clark's conclusions to be lacking warrant, and in fact found the language used and presuppositions latent in Romans 1 to imply the opposite.

Interestingly enough, "Responsibility and Determinism" goes on to admit that responsibility is not actually contingent on knowledge after-all. But Clark does maintain that responsibility is not contingent on Free Will either. To make this case, he offers a counter-example: the teaching of Romans 5:12-21:
Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
If all of humanity is morally responsible for Adam's sin, then moral responsibility is not contingent on Free Will (for surely not every human freely willed Adam to sin!).

But is that what Romans 5 teaches? Are we all really guilty for our great+ grandfather's sin? A face-value reading of Romans 5 with Calvinistic categories in our minds would seem to imply so, but it poses five problems.

The first problem is that there are other passages of scripture whose face-value readings seem to directly contradict a face-value reading of Romans 5. One of the clearest is Ezekiel 18, whose summary is found in verses 20b and 30a:
The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself...

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, declares the Lord GOD.
[This chapter also contains a statement (verse 23) whose face-value reading seems to directly contradict the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election and reprobation: "Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?".]

Ezekiel 18 seems to teach that God judges each individual according to his own ways, and that each individual's righteousness or wickedness is upon himself or herself, not that God judges each individual according to Adam's ways, and that Adam's wickedness is upon each individual. So between the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 and the face-value reading of Ezekiel 18, something has to budge. Should it be the Calvinist understanding of original sin?

The second problem that the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 poses is that Romans 5 uses identical language in describing both the scope of the consequences of Adam's sin, and the scope of the consequences of Christ's free gift. It says that one trespass led to condemnation for 'all' men, and that one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for 'all' men. And when it uses the term "many", it uses it the same way: through one man's disobedience, the 'many' were made sinners, and through one man's obedience the 'many' were made righteous.

Yet since we know from the rest of scripture, and even from Paul's own writings, that not literally all men are justified and given life, we have reason to doubt the Calvinist reading of "one trespass led to condemnation for all men".

The third problem that the Calvinist reading of Romans 5 has is that it is not conclusively entailed by the language used. Paul says that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. The phrase "sin came into the world" doesn't necessarily commit us to anything more than believing that Adam was the first sinner in the world. That death entered into the world "through sin" doesn't spell much else out for us other than that Adam died because of his sin. I am personally unsure about whether Paul means physical or spiritual death in this and subsequent verses, or both, or each in different contexts. Perhaps his offspring were born mortal because of his sin (but I don't see how this verse conclusively teaches that our inherited mortality implies our inherited moral responsibility for Adam's sin). "And so death spread to all men because all sinned... even [to] those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam" could possibly mean that subsequent humans sinned in various ways and thereby incurred death (and not, necessarily, that Adam was the federal head of humanity, unless there are aspects of the Greek grammar that entail such an interpretation that I am not aware of).

The fourth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is that the penal math doesn't add up. Or rather, it adds up to too much. If charges were levied against Adam, then there wouldn't be any to levy against subsequent plaintiffs. This is the same argument the Calvinists themselves use to defeat unlimited atonement: if Christ truly paid for the sins of an individual in full, the Judge has no further charges to levy against them, and there are therefore no grounds for their punishment. For God to require payment for sins that have already been paid for would be unjust. If this logic holds for the mechanics of the atonement, it holds for the mechanics of original sin too. Therefore if Adam was held responsible for his sin, then his offspring cannot be.

The fifth problem with the Calvinist interpretation of Romans 5 is different. This one is not a problem inherent in the doctrine, but an objection to the possibility that Clark or another Calvinist might use one variant of the doctrine as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is contingent on Free Will.

Some Calvinists might object to the other four problems I've outlined with something like "But Adam's sin wasn't just his own. When he sinned, all of humanity was bound up in him and sinned too.". I think this is close to Jonathan Edwards' position. There may be internal problems with such a view, but today I would just like to point out that if that's the case, then it might be that humans are morally responsible for Adam's sin, but not on the basis of inherited guilt. If every subsequent human participated in Adam's sin and is thereby guilty, then it would be an example of moral responsibility being grounded in human Free Will, not a counter-example.

As of tonight, it is not clear to me what Romans 5 means. I can trace some of the boundaries of the meaning, but cannot fill in all of the soteriological details about original sin.

Now don't blow this out of proportion; I am not trying to make room for what is commonly called "Pelagianism"; I maintain that Adam and every human being with a biological father need a Savior, salvation cannot come by works, and we inherited a lot more than a bad example from Adam.

But I am not convinced we inherited guilt. I am not convinced we are held morally responsible for Adam's sin.

I think in the end my view turns out to be something like Copan's.

Therefore I am not convinced that the teaching of Romans 5 stands as a counter-example to the principle that moral responsibility is grounded in Free Will.

Well, since I only got through the second paragraph of this section, and there remain four or five more, I will save the rest for subsequent posts. In the next post I really hope to get around to explaining what Clark believes moral responsibility is grounded in and why I find such view wanting.

2 comments:

  1. Thoughtful stuff, Louis.

    In reading through this I felt a chorus of cringing from all the Calvinists who might happen to read this post.

    At the same time, however, in reading this I felt like I was being freed from theological shackles.

    Let's James Whitefy something you said, though:

    "[Romans 5] says that one trespass led to the condemnation of [each and every man], and that one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for [all kinds of] men. And when it uses the term "many", it [doesn’t] use it in the same way: through one man's disobedience, the "many" [i.e., each and every man] were made sinners, and through one man's obedience the 'many' [i.e., the elect] were made righteous."

    Whatcha think? I think it has as much of a plausibility ring to it as the New World Translation’s rendering of Colossians 1:15-16.

    Is there a James White Study Bible yet? Perhaps he could throw off the pretension by calling it the “The Alpha and Omega Study Bible.”

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  2. That's really funny Derek.

    I have to admit that I can sympathize with the Calvinists’ motivation to interpret Romans 5 the way they do, and even used to identify with it. But now I am not so sure about quite all of it, especially the part about inheriting guilt for another man’s sin. It seems to be contrary to the counsel of the rest of scripture, which paints a very individual picture of judgement:

    • The “Sheep and Goat Judgment” in Matthew 25:31-46
    • The “Great White Throne Judgement” in Revelation 20:11-14
    • See also: Job 34:11, Ps. 79:8, Prov. 24:12, Hos. 12:2, Matt. 16:27, Rom. 2:6, 1 Pet. 1:17, and of course Ezek. 18

    The Calvinist construal of original sin is also suspiciously missing from the Genesis 3 account of the Curse, in which God only tells Adam that he will thence have to work for food and will eventually return to the dust from which he came, but not that God will hold Adam’s offspring morally responsible for his sin.

    On the other side it seems as though the nature of our relationships with our fathers (humanity being a race of creatures, as opposed to angelic beings, who are ontological individuals) are such that allow for other types of consequential inheritances besides moral guilt (Ex. 20:5, Ex. 34:7, Num. 14:18, Deut. 5:9, and of course Rom. 5:14-21 and 1 Cor. 15:21-23).

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