by Ken Hamrick
This is an informal discussion of the concluding part of John Murray’s book, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Wm. B. Eerdman, 1959). As a Realist, I disagree with Murray’s Representationist view (which is also a Nominalistic Federal view).
Realism is the biblical principle of a shared identity grounded in a spiritual union or singularity of spiritual origin–and more broadly, Realism is a paradigm in which God’s justice depends on substantial reality; whereas Nominalism is the denial of any identifying union of immaterial substance within the man, Adam–and more broadly, it is a paradigm in which substantial reality is not necessary to God’s justice. Realists, from their paradigm, seek a justice that is commensurate with the facts of substantial reality and find it in a real union of immaterial substance inside Adam; whereas Nominalists see no necessity for justice to be dependent on the facts of substantial reality, but instead, include the nonsubstantial thoughts of God as sufficient ground for justice, and so they are content to locate man’s union with Adam as inside God’s mind alone.
Let’s start with point 5, pp. 91-92:
(5) The sin of Adam was what all sin is, transgression of the law of God. As such it was pravity and perversity; it was culpa without mitigation. It is impossible to think of his trespass apart from these characterisations. When sin is predicated of him it would be an abstraction to posit such predication apart from these characteristic conditions. Likewise, when we think of the solidarity of the race with Adam in his sin, is it not an abstraction to think of posterity’s involvement apart from these same characterisations? If we may not make this abstraction it means that the solidarity of the race with Adam’s trespass requires us to infer that the pravity and perversity of sin are entailed for posterity in their identification with the original trespass. This is simply to say that when each member of the race comes to exist he exists, from the inception of his being, as depraved with that perversity which his solidaric identification with the sin of Adam involves.
When Adam sinned, he did not sin as abstractly contemplated in God’s mind prior to when he “came to be actually.” No, Adam existed as an individual and sinned concretely within reality. However, when posterity sinned in Adam according to Murray’s scheme, they did not do so concretely. So then, how is our involvement in Adam’s sin not “an abstraction?” The definition of “abstract” is existing in thought or as an idea but without having concrete existence. Murray strongly implies that mankind’s existence in God’s mind was more than abstract.
Murray, pp. 92-93:
…our involvement in and identification with the sin of Adam carries with it as a necessary ingredient the pravity or perversity apart from which sin does not exist. In other words, the imputation of Adam’s sin carries with it, not merely as consequence but as implicate, the depravity with which all the members of the race begin their existence as distinct individuals. The imputation is not thus conceived of as something causally antecedent to the depravity but as that which includes depravity as an element…
…It is true that in the act of generation we become depraved. This is true because it is by generation that we come to be as distinct persons. In this sense it would not be improper to say that we become depraved by natural generation. But natural generation is not the reason why we are conceived in sin. It is not an adequate explanation of our depravity to say that by the law of generation like begets like and since Adam became depraved it was inevitable that he should beget children in the same depraved condition. It is necessary, of course, to take account of this factor. But the reason why we are naturally generated in sin is that, whenever we begin to be, we begin to be as sinful because of our solidarity with Adam in his sin. Thus the relation of natural generation to depravity is that by the former we begin to be and having begun to be we are necessarily sinful by reason of our involvement in Adam’s sin. Natural generation we may speak of, if we will, as the means of conveying depravity, but, strictly, natural generation is the means whereby we come to be and depravity is the correlate of our having come to be.”
Murray almost sounds like a Realist. As he pushes the envelope ever further toward a justifying reality on which to ground the imputation and the depravity–while simultaneously denying that there is any actual substance to the reality–he must push the language toward speaking of our “solidarity” and involvement in Adam’s sin in such realistic terms as would belie that we were only reckoned by God to have any involvement and not actually did we have any real involvement. He acknowledges that we do not “come to be” until we are generated as individuals. Where then is the supposed “solidarity” and “involvement in Adam’s sin?” If we did not yet come into being, how did Adam’s sin involve those who did not exist? “Solidarity?” What is solid about it? In what solid ground did this solidaric involvement consist?
Murray says, “the imputation of Adam’s sin carries with it, not merely as consequence but as implicate, the depravity with which all the members of the race begin their existence as distinct individuals.” Do you see how far he is pushing this phantom reality? Like opening a gift box and finding it empty, Murray’s language of an involvement so real that depravity is itself an implicate of sinning in Adam promises a solid ground that it utterly fails to deliver. It’s all smoke and mirrors, and if you don’t look too closely, it works. But open the box and it all disappears. Here’s all that’s inside the box, p. 90:
(1) The members of posterity cannot be conceived of as existing when Adam trespassed. To posit any such supposition is to contradict the meaning of conception and generation as the divinely constituted means for the origin of all members of the race except the first pair. Yet all the members of the race were contemplated by God as destined to exist; they were foreordained to be and the certainty of their existence was thus guaranteed. It is important in this connection to bear in mind that as thus contemplated by God they were contemplated no otherwise than as members of the race in solidaric union with Adam and therefore as having sinned in him. In other words, they are not conceived of in the mind and purpose of God except as one with Adam; they are not contemplated as potentially but as actually one with Adam in his sin. And this proposition is basic to all further thought on the question.
In every erroneous system, there is a weakness, a contradiction, and often a subtle leaning on an idea that is expressly denied. It’s a human foible to want to have one’s cake and eat it too–and to strongly deny it while doing it. Murray and the Representationists would never think of claiming that mankind had a real existence in God’s mind…. but… if they truly believe that God reckons and views us as if we really did sin in Adam’s sin and really were involved in solidaric unity (as solid as they can find words to describe it), then the hidden assumption is that God cannot lie so what God views as true really is true. So if He views us as having existed in some sense that was real enough to justify and ground the depravity being passed to us as an implicate of our sinning, then we must have truly existed in that sense.
All of this would have been nonsensical prior to the rise and full embrace of Nominalism. The early Reformers to whom Murray points who demanded that culpability and penalty are inseparable would never have accepted Murray’s scheme of a “solid,” phantom reality wherein the culpability is imputed with the sin.
Here, Murray exposes some of his error: “they are not contemplated as potentially but as actually one with Adam in his sin. And this proposition is basic to all further thought on the question.” So tell me how people who do not actually exist but currently only potentially exist can be contemplated by God as actually one with Adam and not merely potentially one with him? Further, since we did not exist, then depravity could not be an implicate of our involvement in Adam’s sin–it can only be an implicate of God’s choice to contemplate or reckon us as if we were involved in Adam’s sin. Murray continues, pp. 90-91:
(2) All the members of the race come to exist actually by the act or process of generation; this is the divinely constituted means whereby God’s foreordained design comes to effect in the course of history. It is a capital mistake to interpose the question: when does each member of the race become actually sinful? For the truth is that each person never exists as other than sinful. He is eternally contemplated by God as sinful by reason of the solidarity with Adam, and, whenever the person comes to be actually, he comes to be as sinful. Sinfulness is correlative with his beginning to be as an individual in his mother’s womb. If, for the moment, we speak of the soul as the seat of personality, it runs counter to all the implications of our solidarity with Adam to think of the soul as ever existing or as conceived by God to exist as a pure entity undefiled by sin. The soul or, to speak more properly, the person never exists apart from the sin of Adam’s transgression.
Did you catch the hidden assumption being exposed again? Words are very important to Murray and none are wasted with him. So what does he mean, “whenever the person comes to be actually?” He is smuggling in an idea of being that is less than “actual” but more than nonexistence–as if nonactual being were a mode of existence.
For the truth is that each person never exists as other than sinful. He is eternally contemplated by God as sinful by reason of the solidarity with Adam, and, whenever the person comes to be actually, he comes to be as sinful.
Murray states that “each person never exists as other than sinful,” and then goes on to show how we were always sinful in both modes of existence–our existence in the eternal contemplation of God and our existence when we “come to be actually.” Then, he states it more plainly:
…it runs counter to all the implications of our solidarity with Adam to think of the soul as ever existing or as conceived by God to exist as a pure entity undefiled by sin.
There it is! One may exist actually or one may be conceived by God to exist! And this is the promised ground of reality inside the nicely wrapped gift box mentioned above. But if we are eternally contemplated by God and if that contemplated existence has any of the reality that Murray seems to want to give it, then our existence is coeternal with God and Cornelius Van Til’s warnings of Pantheism ought to apply. God’s eternal knowledge of the created world does not lend any reality to what is known. Nothing really exists if it exists only in God’s mind; and this is the main error of Nominalistic Federal Representationism. They try as hard as they can to step over the line by implication, but they dare not step over it explicitly. Yet, without the reality that it promises, their system has no ground of justice, and all their voluntaristic insistence only brings them back to this same borderline (–or is it a precipice?).
Murray is right to instinctively lean on the idea of a solidaric mode of being that precedes the individual mode of being; but this mode of being is that which all men corporately and germinally shared in Adam. When Adam “came to be actually,” all mankind came to be actually, but came to be as one in the man, Adam; all sinned in and with him, and all were then propagated from out of him–each one coming to be actually as an individual. Without our original and actual being in Adam, there is no moral ground for any “moral union.”
The forgotten Realist 