#941 Finding a Biblical Doctrine of Sin

Dr. craig’s response

There is no universally agreed upon doctrine of sin in Christendom, and no ecumenical council has pronounced on it. So the different creeds and confessions of various churches concerning the doctrine of sin are binding only upon those who are members of a particular ecclesiastical body. One man’s orthodoxy may be another man’s heresy. The only justifiable inference that may be drawn from this video is, “Hmmm, I guess Dr. Craig is not a Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinist. I wonder if he’s Eastern Orthodox or Arminian or Wesleyan.”

What is vastly more important than adherence to a denominational creed, therefore, is whether one’s doctrine of sin is biblical. On this score, my studied view is that the doctrine that Adam’s sin is imputed to each of his descendants, so that each of us is guilty of Adam’s sin, is unbiblical. This so-called doctrine of original guilt is not taught in the story of the fall in Genesis 3 nor in Romans 5, as I’ve argued in my In Quest of the Historical Adam. The story of the fall does describe the first or primal sin committed by human beings, along with its disastrous consequences for all mankind. But one looks in vain for any indication by the author that all humans are held to be guilty of Adam’s sin.

Moreover, there is no suggestion in the story that Adam and Eve’s sin resulted in a corruption of human nature that is transmitted to their descendants. The curses pronounced by God have nothing to do with moral corruption that is passed on from parent to child. Furthermore, the doctrine of a corruption of human nature is, perhaps surprisingly, nowhere to be found in Romans 5.12–21. Neither is it to be found in passages like Ephesians 2.3, lest human nature be regarded as essentially sinful and conversion as an essential change in humanity. The Bible therefore does not teach the doctrine of original sin, either in the form of our bearing the original guilt of Adam’s sin or of the corruption of human nature as a consequence of Adam’s sin. Neither does the Scripture attribute the universality and pervasiveness of sin to the transmission of Adam’s sin to us. The doctrine of original sin is therefore not incumbent upon the Christian theologian.

It is plausible that in their pre-fall state of innocence, Adam and Eve could not have avoided sin without some sort of special divine assistance. We may therefore hypothesize that in that state they enjoyed what has traditionally been called a superadded gift of grace, such as the indwelling Holy Spirit, above and beyond what they had by human nature alone. In choosing to sin, they defied God, casting aside this gracious help, and so plunged themselves into evil. Now sinful, they experienced alienation from God and spiritual death.

Without the assistance of God’s special grace they could no longer control the animal nature that was of biological necessity theirs, leading to self-centeredness and a panoply of sins of soul and body, sins which eventually became rampant in human society and helped to distort the lives of their progeny. Although human nature is not corrupted by Adam’s sin, it is unleashed from the restraint and guidance of God’s special grace. There is no hereditary sin, but every merely human person is born deprived of the divine help that was Adam and Eve’s. God has chosen to enclose all men in a mass of sin with a view to reestablishing his original plan for humanity derailed by Adam and Eve’s perfidy.

On this view, infants do not become sinful until they are able to make free decisions of their own that are against God’s will and so offend God. Scripture simply does not speak to the issue of infants who die at an extremely early age. It is misleading to say that they are “unregenerate” because that connotes that they are spiritually dead due to sin, whereas they are not yet sinful. Eventually they begin to do things contrary to God’s will and so become sinners. Although unfit for heaven at that point, they are not culpable of evil until they transgress a divine command and so are condemned and guilty.

It is disquieting to think that those who die in infancy, being sinless, will be saved apart from Christ’s atoning death. But could there be some other reason why they are not fit for heaven, other than their being sinful? Here’s a thought: according to the classic doctrine of the atonement, not only are our sins imputed to Christ, but Christ’s righteousness is imputed to us. Even if infants’ sins are not imputed to Christ, since they have no sins, nonetheless it could still be the case that in order to go to heaven, Christ’s perfect righteousness must be imputed to them. Thus, they cannot be saved apart from Christ’s atoning work on our behalf.