1848.] Müller's Christian Doctrine of Sin. 499 ARTICLE VII. MÜLLER'S CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN. By Edward Robie, Resident Licentiate, Theol. Seminary, Andover. [SIN and Redemption-these are the two great facts which engage the attention of the student of Christian Theology. Our views of one of these facts will be according to our views of the other. It is impossible truly to understand the nature of redemption without first understanding the nature of sin. The various departments of Christian doctrine may, indeed, be separately treated of, but together they form an organic body, in which the individual members mutually affect and support each other. Germany has been distinguished not only for the number of her systems of divinity, but also for the number of monographs, or works on particular doctrines. Among these, few have attracted more notice than Prof. Müller's work on Sin. We propose to give a general sketch of the argument contained in this work. It is entitled, The Christian Doctrine of Sin, and is divided into five books. The subject of the first book is, The Reality of Sin, which is subdivided into two parts, (a) The Nature of Sin; (b) Its Guilt. In the second book the author examines several prominent theories which have been given for the explanation of sin. In the third book he gives his own theory, or in other words, his views of the Freedom of the Will. The fourth book is entitled, The Spread of Sin, i. e. its Universality as pertaining to the race, or Original Sin. The subject of the fifth book is, The Increasing Power of Sin in the Development of the Individual. It is proper in the first place to state briefly the principles which have guided the author in the treatment of his subject. These have been gathered in part from the Introduction and in part from the general method of his argument. Prof. Müller is decidedly opposed to that school of philosophy which pretends without the aid of premises and empirical observation and by a method of its own to evolve a system of truth. In his view, human thought is never an independent producing, but is a reproducing in relation to what actually exists as an object of perception or subject of consciousness. The doctrines of Christian Theology are not pro 1 Vid. Biblioth. Sacra, Vol. IV. p. 217 sq. duced or invented by the activity of the human mind, but are received from a source in which the human mind may be certain of the presence of a Divine power and of eternal truth. Religion is a reality present in the history of the world and in the life of millions. It is a fact as real as the existence of an outward world of nature, and as nature did not wait till a science of nature allowed her to exist, so neither have the facts of religion waited for a philosophy to produce them. In unfolding the Christian doctrine of sin, a two-fold purpose may be had in view. Our object may be either to discover the teachings of Christ and the apostles respecting it, or more extensive than this, it may be to exhibit the various theological and philosophical opinions respecting it which have been held both in the church and out of it, and determine their relation to each other and to the doctrine of the New Testament. The first method is possible without the second, but evidently the second is not possible without the first, for a scientific exhibition of doctrines from the sources of Christian consciousness has this double relation to the Holy Scriptures, that on the one side it is a further development of the germs of doctrine contained in them, and on the other side finds in them the measure and criterion of its correctness. And such a criterion is necessary, because the Christian consciousness is liable to be darkened and disturbed by unchristian elements. It is so impressible in its nature, that a skilfully applied logic can give a shape to a doctrine inconsistent with its true character. Every statement of doctrine, to give it validity as an expression of Christian consciousness, needs the corroboration of an outward support, and this is to be found in the revealed word of God.-E. R.] § 1. Nature of Sin. In order to overcome an enemy, it is necessary to know something about him. The inquiry, therefore, into the nature of sin is practical in its tendency, and any reluctance to engage in this inquiry because of the painfulness attending it, does not by any means diminish the reality of sin, and, like the cunning of the ostrich, that thinks by thrusting its head into a thicket, to be safe from the pursuit of the hunter, does but deliver us the more certainly into its power. Sin manifests itself at first as opposition to law. Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3: 4). The idea of a moral law requiring absolute obedience, belongs so essentially to human consciousness, that we must doubt of the completeness of human nature in any individual in whom it should be supposed to be wanting. This law, however, 1848.] Is God's Will the Primary Ground of Right? 501 does not have its origin in man. To him it is given, and can have its origin only in a Being to whom it is not given, that is, in a Personal God. There is one lawgiver (James 4: 12). The definition of sin as "transgression of the law," is manifestly only formal in its character, the nature of sin it does not determine unless we know already the nature of the law. In order to understand the essential principle of sin, it will be necessary first of all to understand the essential principle of the divine law. Sin appears to us in a variety of forms. The law also is given to us in a variety of precepts, and our inquiry after the principle which binds together the various kinds of sin, or is the common source from which they spring, must begin with the inquiry after the principle which pervades and unites the divine commandments, or, in other words, the essence of moral good. It is the opinion of not a few that the primary ground of moral right is no other than the will of God itself, (merum arbitrium Dei).1 This view is to be regarded as the result of a misunderstanding of the idea of freedom, as if the freedom of the will was limited in the same proportion as the subject is determined by motives presented to him by intelligence. On the contrary, we must maintain that an act of the will is so much the more free, the clearer the agent knows what he wills and why he wills, the more his entire spiritual life is embraced in the act of the will. The law of God which he has given as the rule for the conduct of his creatures, is the expression or manifestation of his own nature, and when the schoolmen (Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas) speak of a lex eterna, they do not regard this as existing independently of God, and standing as it were over him, but they place it in the Divine understanding-mens divina. Occasionally by these writers the doctrine is advanced that the moral law would not cease to obligate men, etsi daretur Deum non esse. Now, while we reject such a doctrine, believing that without a personal God a moral law is not possible, we yet may acknowledge that it contains this truth, that our moral consciousness would not at once be destroyed with the loss of our religious consciousness. It is an oft-repeated fact, that unbelievers in the existence of a personal God are not able to rid themselves of the warnings of that law which God has written in their consciences. And may we not herein observe a holy and merciful purpose of God, that when man has sundered the bond of communion with his Maker, another bond should remain by which it is possible to 1 Among the Schoolmen, who held this view, were Duns Scotus and his disciples. bring the wanderer back again to allegiance to Him from whom he has so wilfully departed? Yet the advice may be given us not to seek for the inner unity of the moral law, which contains such a variety of precepts, but to rest satisfied with the facts of our moral consciousness and of historical revelation, under the plea that this unity, although present in the Divine Mind, yet cannot be discovered by man. So Augustine, with reference to the doctrine of predestination, regarded the grounds of the decisions of the Divine Will as undiscoverable by the human mind, and Calvin, by his decretum absolutum, did not by any means understand arbitrariness on the part of God, but only the incomprehensibleness by man of the wise and holy decrees of God. But certainly it is not merely a scientific interest, it is also a practical interest which prompts our present inquiry. With respect to the nature of the N. T.. Dispensation, we read Heb. 10: 16, This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them. We wish to know the fundamental principle from which a holy life developes itself, and penetrates and pervades all the varieties of human relations. To the scribe who asked our Saviour (Matt. 22: 36–40. Mark 12: 29-31), Which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the great com.. mandment, and the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, and to prevent the conception that these commandments were only the greatest among others which might be added to them, and to lead the inquirer to the knowledge that in them the living unity of all moral commandments is contained, he adds, On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. In this answer the highest unity seems still to be concealed between a duality of requirements, Love to God and Love to our neighbor. But the manner in which Christ denotes the first of these commandments as the great commandment, shows clearly, that we are to seek in this the uniity of both, and this appears still more clearly if we ask why man, in distinction from all other creatures, should be the object of a love which by no means allows us to regard him as means for our own ends, but recognizes him as having a destination equal to our own. If one points to the unity of the species as the ground of this love, this is indeed the natural basis of the universal love of man, but that is not the ground of its ethical worth and necessity. This is to be found in the fact that the image of God shines in the spiritual nature of man. And if it is our duty to love the Original, it is also our duty 1848.] Unity of the Divine Commandments. 503 to love the image. Consequently, the second command has the first for its principle, and the external relation of the two tables of the law, one containing our duties to God, the other our duties to man, is elevated to a true unity. God is not only an object of love, but is the absolute and all-embracing object of love, so that any other love is holy and imperishable only by being taken up into this. This principle is implied in the requirement of a love to God with all the heart, with all the soul, with all the mind, and with all the strength. In the Old Testament, the commandment to respect the life of man is based on the image of God in man, (Gen. 9: 6). From this, James derives the exhortation not to curse man, and represents it as a contradiction to praise God as Father, and at the same time to cherish hatred towards men, which are made after the similitude of God, (Jas. 3:9-11. Love to the Original is not genuine, unless it is preserved in love to the image; and so much the less since we are able to know God only through his revelations, and man is, to some degree, a revelation of God. However, we are never to forget that a revelation of God is only really such to us, when it leads us to Him. It is not one text alone in which love to God is declared to be the productive principle of all fulfilling of the law, but this truth pervades the New Testament. Christ often represents love to his Father as the soul of his life; e. g. John 14: 31. 15: 10. He requires love to himself, which is identical with love to the Father, (John 14: 9); as the living ground, on the part of his disciples, of the fulfilment of his commandments, (John 14: 15, 21. 15: 10). In like manner, love to God or to Christ, or love generally, is set forth by the apostles as the essential principle of all true virtue. Eph. 3: 17. 4:15. 1 Cor. 8: 2,3. 13: 1-7. Rom. 14: 7, 8. 2 Cor. 5: 14, 15. Gal. 2: 20. 1 Tim. 1: 5 1 John 4: 19-21. 5: 1-3. The same thought is expressed, only in another form, when the apostle Paul requires of Christians that all that they do, they do to the glory of God, (1 Cor. 10: 31). The same is taught in the words of Christ to one who, from his youth up, had kept the commandments, (Matt. 19: 16-22). Our Saviour turns his attention away from the individual precepts relating to external acts, to that perfection which embraces every other, and from the abstract idea of goodness to the personal God who alone is good, and to fellowship with him as the only source of holiness and spiritual life for the creature. Thus, according to the instructions of the Holy Scriptures, we are to regard love to God as the proper essence of whatever is morally good, and every other feeling or action is good only so far as it has its |