# Jonathan Edwards & original sin



## Reena Wilms (Jun 15, 2004)

Can someone explain what his view was on original sin ? Because i hear from someone that Ch. Hodge wrote an artical where his disagreed with the view that J. Edwards hath on original sin ?

Ralph


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## Reena Wilms (Jun 16, 2004)

Does really nobody knows ????uzzled:uzzled:uzzled:


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## Scott Bushey (Jun 16, 2004)

Reena,
Read his works.........
Do a google on &quot;Jonathan Edwards original sin&quot;


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## neo-puritan (Jun 20, 2004)

I am not familiar with Edwards' work, but for seventeenth-century Puritans your best source is Anthony Burgess, &quot;A Treatise of Original Sin,&quot; (London, 1658). The best general summary of Puritan thinking on sin and its psychology is Richard Bernard's popular &quot;The Legal Proceedings in Man-Shire Against Sinne.&quot; 

When studying Puritan thinking about sin, watch out for the difference between sinning in the outward, observable, physical behavior and sinning in the inner world of thoughts, fantasies, desires and emotions -- the rules that dealt with this later obedience were usually denoted by the expression &quot;spiritual law.&quot; Puritans required both types of obedience, but they held the inner, &quot;spiritual&quot; obedience to be more important: 

&quot; . . . keep [religion's] law spiritually, because it is spiritual . . . indeed in this it does especially differ from the laws of men: for they do tie the hand, and the tongue, and the foot, to the good-abearing, and take note if any of these are faulty against them; but they meddle not with the heart, and make no question of the inward motions of the soul . . . But God searches the hearts and tries the reins, and enters into the secrets of the soul: and therefore he commands to love him with all our heart, and with all our soul; not contented with such a love only, as is declared by the outward behavior of the body . . . all the obedience performed to God must proceed from within, and come from the heart, else it shall be no whit acceptable to him.&quot; (John Dod &amp; Robert Cleaver, &quot;A Plaine and familiar Exposition of the Ten Commandements,&quot; (London, 1604), 8.)

In practise the &quot;spiritual interpretation&quot; of law meant that truly religious people not only had to behave virtuously, they had to feel that behavior as pleasant. Similarly, people who had been touched by grace did not just leave sins undone, they felt them as disgusting. The requirement to obey in emotions explains the &quot;law demands the impossible&quot; idea, that was central to Protestantism. After all, people cannot control their emotions by willpower. 

The significance of the difference between external and internal obedience is highlighted by the hypocrisy concept: hypocrites often performed the outward obedience better than truly religious people, but they failed in the &quot;spiritual obedience&quot; of thoughts and emotions. 

The division between inner and outward obedience is easy to overlook, because the two types were usually discussed separately. For example, the most popular Puritan writer before 1640, William Perkins, discussed the outward obedience in his &quot;Cases of Conscience&quot; and the inner obedience in his &quot;A Treatise of Man's Imaginations.&quot; The tone of the latter book is summed on pp. 98-99: &quot;the second Table of the morall lawe, which was penned with respect to the corrupt estate of man, forbidding that which man's corrupt heart thinks naturally against his neighbour: for every commandement thereof is spiritual, forbidding not only the wicked actions, evil words, and gestures, but all corrupt affections, yea all evil Imaginations of man against man.&quot;


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## Reena Wilms (Jun 21, 2004)

Thanks neo-puritan,

I heard that International outreach will in the future published that book Anthony Burgess, &quot;A Treatise of Original Sin! So iam looking foreward!

Ralph


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## Contra_Mundum (Jun 21, 2004)

I have J. Edward's treatise, unread however.
Ch. Hodge disputes with Edwards (on some particular point) in his Systematic Theo. Dabney addresses some difference between them, and differs himself from them at points.
It would probably be fair to say that on the [i:6c98d8dcc5]fact[/i:6c98d8dcc5] of Original Sin, Edwards and Hodge would be on the same, calvinistic, puritan page. They apparently went about defending the doctrine, though on many pillars identical, yet on one or another at variance. Dabney explains: Edwards used his philosophical argument of &quot;continuous creation&quot; to dodge Pelagian arguments against the doctrine of Original Sin. Hodge, will have none of Edwardian speculation on this point and defends the doctrine without such recourse.

All in all, I think more is made of this division possibly than is warranted. Both Dabney and Hodge were not afraid to revere and disagree with &quot;President&quot; Edwards. Dabney makes sections of Edward's Treatise manditory reading for his lectures.


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## cupotea (Jul 28, 2004)

Edwards' view of original sin (so far as transmission) is entirely unique. Edwards' perspective was not necessarily the federal-head view... It was really as close to entirely original as you could get... I do recall writing a paper on Edwards' view of transmission of sin in which I touched upon Hodge's critique. The problem with Hodge's critique is that he still thinks that at its core, Edwards' view is the Federal Head view, by which all human beings are considered guilty by virtue of Adam's sin as their representative.

Edwards' view, however, says that all of humanity are identified with one man, Adam, and that most truly and literally, Adam's sin was also my sin.

I will paraphrase the structure of one of Edwards' points that I remember him making in his writing On Original Sin (found in Volume 1 of the 2-volumes released by Hendricksen):

John Locke was incorrect to define [i:cdcf15f438]personal identity [/i:cdcf15f438]as continuation of consciousness. Why was he incorrect? (And here, Edwards presents a reductio ad absurdum) Because, I can conceive of a scenario where God, who can do anything, takes me and creates two exact replicas of me who have all of my memories and, bearing my memories, sends them to entirely different places out of my sight, completely absent from my knowledge. Is there anyone who is willing to argue that since they have the same continuation of consciousness as me that I and they are one? Of course not. Therefore, personal identity does not consist in continuation of consciousness.

I wish I had my resources handy, but Edwards very clearly states that Adam's sin most properly is owned by his descendants because Adam's first sin WAS also the sin of his descendants. In other words, putting this together with the above paraphrase which I butchered from him, Edwards believes that just as God could create another me who has all of my memories and consciousness, it is a possible explanation of transmission to state that God created me [i:cdcf15f438]identified [/i:cdcf15f438]with Adam.

Hopefully I didn't cause more confusion. It's been months since I've thought about this. I actually agree with Edwards' view, though I believe Edwards' view cannot be either proven or disproven from scripture. It's pure speculation, as far as I know. I do, however, have a vast amount of respect for Edwards on this subject, and I hope that someone can benefit from this writing. Perhaps if someone is interested, I can get my old paper up on my website sometime soon.


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